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    Harry Turtledove
    
    nothing to do with fairy rings, no matter what people - even scholars -
    might have thought back in the days of the Kaunian Empire. That didn , t
    mean the mushrooms weren't good. She gathered a handful before going
    on.
     When she got to an oak thicket on the other side of the field, she
    nodded to herself This was where she'd met Ealstan the year before. No
    matter what her grandfather said about him, she found him pleasant
    enough - and how she wished he hadn't found her with Brivibas and
    Spinello!
     The other thing she remembered about the grove was the oyster
    mushrooms she'd taken from him. Sure enough, more of them waited on
    the trunks of the trees. She cut them away with a paring knife and put
    them into her basket one after another. Some of them, older than the rest,
    were getting tough, but they'd do fine in slow-cooked stews.
    
     She nibbled at a fresh young one. She'd never had real oysters;
    Oyngestun was too small a village to make any sort of market for such
    fancy, faraway foods. If they were as good as these mushrooms, though,
    she could understand why people thought so highly of them.
     Her feet scuffed through fallen leaves while she went looking for more
    mushrooms. Abruptly, she realized hers weren't the only feet she heard
    scuffing through leaves. Her hand tightened on the handle of the paring
    knife. Most people, even strangers met gathering mushrooms, were
    harmless enough. In case she ran into one who wasn't .
     But the Forthwegian who stepped out from between a couple of trees
    not far away wasn't a stranger, or not quite a stranger. "Vanai," he said,
    and then stopped, as if wondering where to go from there.
     "Hello, Ealstan." Rather to Vanal's surprise, she answered in Kaunian,
    Was she putting him in his place? Or was she simply reminding him Of
    who and what she was?
     "I wondered if I would see you here," he said, also in Kaunian. "I
    thought of you when I came here to hunt mushrooms." His mouth tight-
    ened. "I did not know if I would see you here with an Algarvian."
    
     Vanal winced. "No! Powers above, no! He wanted to persuade my
    grandfather to do something to serve Algarve's purposes. When my
    grandfather would not, he stopped bothering us."
     "Ali?" It was a noncommittal noise, one almost altogether devoid of
    color. After a short pause, Ealstan went on, "He did not look as if he were

    




    INTo THE DARKNESS
    
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    bothering you or your grandfather." He used the subjunctive correctly.
    "He looked very friendly, in fact."
     "He was very friendly," Vanai said. "He almost fooled my grandfather
    into being friendly in return. But he did not, and I am glad he did not."
     "Ah," Ealstan said again. "And was he friendly to you, too?"
     Vanal did not care for the emphasis he gave that word. "He might
    have liked to be friendly to me, but I was not friendly to him." Only after
    the words were out of her mouth did she realize Ealstan really had no
    business asking such an intimate question. She was relieved it didn't have
    an intimate answer.
     Ealstan certainly seemed glad of the answer he'd got. He said, "Some
    Forthwegians are hand in glove with the redheads. I suppose some
    Kaunians could be, too, but I will say I was surprised at the time."
     "I was surprised when Major Spinello knocked on our door," Vanai
    said. "I wish he'd never done it." That was true, no matter how well she
    and Brivibas had eaten for a while. Then she recognized that Ealstan had
    admitted some of his own blood collaborated with the occupiers. That
    was more generous than he'd had to be.
     He scratched his chin. The down there was darker than it had been the
    year before, closer to real whiskers. Slowly, he said, "Your grandfather
    must be a man of some importance, if the Algarvians wanted him to do
    something for them even though he is a Kaunian."
     "He is a scholar," Vanal answered. "They thought his word had
    weight because of that.
     Ealstan studied her: more nearly a grown man's sober consideration
    than the way he'd looked at her the last time they met. Then, of course,
    all he'd been trying to decide was whether he thought she was pretty or
    not. Now he was figuring out whether to believe her, which was rather
    more important. He evidently thought it was more important, too. That
    earned him a point in her book. If he didn't believe her, though, whether
    he earned a point in her book wouldn't matter.
     She discovered that his believing her mattered quite a lot to her. If he
    didn't, then odds were he'd spoken her fair the autumn before for no
    better reason than that he'd thought she was a pretty girl - which would,
    in essence, prove her grandfather right about him. Bri'vibas was some-
     times able to admit he'd made a mistake. When he turned out to be right,
     though, she found him insufferable.

    




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    Harry Turtledove
    
     Slowly, Ealstan said, "All night. That makes sense. I suppose the red-
    heads are out to make themselves look good any way they can."
     "They certainly are!" Vanai exclaimed. Ealstan never found out how
    close his comment came to getting him kissed; Vanal, Just then, found
    anything like approval so seldom, she was doubly delighted when she did.
    But the moment never quite came to fruition. After a deep breath, all she
    ended up saying was, "Do you want to swap some mushrooms, the way
    we did last year?" That would let her score points off her grandfather,
    too.
    
     His smile almost made her sorry she hadn't kissed him. "I was hoping
    you'd ask," he said. "Trading them can be about as much fun as
    them yourself " He handed her his basket. She gave him hers.
    
     They stood close by each other, heads bent over the mushrooms
    fingers sometimes brushing as they traded. It was at the same time inno-
    cent and anything but. Vanai didn't know about Ealstan, but she was
    noticing the anything but more and more when someone called out in
    Forthwegian from not far away: "Ealstan? Where in blazes have you
    gotten to, cousin.
     By the way Ealstan jumped back from Vanal, maybe he'd been notic-
    ing anything but, too. "I'm here, Sidroc," he called back, and then, in a
    lower voice, explained, "My cousin," as if Vanal couldn't figure that out
    for herself
     Sidroc came crunching through the dry leaves. He did share a family
    look with Ealstan. When he saw Vanal, his eyes widened. She didn't care
    for the gleam that came into them. "Hello!" he said. "I thought you were
    hunting mushrooms, cousin, not Kaunian popsies."
    
     "She's not a popsy, so keep a civil tongue in your head," Ealst
    snapped. "She's - a ftiend."
     "Some friend." Sidroc's eyes traveled the length of Vanal, imagining'
    her shape under her tunic and trousers. But then he checked himself an,
    turned to Ealstan. "Bad enough to have Kaunian friends any old
    you ask me. Worse to have Kaunian friends now, with the redheads
    ning things here."
     110h, shut up," Ealstan said wearily; it sounded like an arguinclit
    they'd had beforc.
     "I'd better go," Vanai said, and did.
     I hope I'll see you again," Ealstan called after her.
    
    She didn't 'nswe

    




    INTo THE DARKNESS
    
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    The worst of it, by far the worst of it, was that his cousin - Sidroc - was
    so likely to be right. Vanai was out of the oak grove and halfway across
    the field before she realized she still had Ealstan's mushroom basket. She
    didn't turn back, but kept on walking west toward Oyngestun.
    
    9
    9
    
    S,
    
    0-
    
    as
    in
    
    011
    
     C_
    n a
    out
    
    ily
    are
    
    ere
    
     "I ought to pop you one," Ealstan growled as he and Sidroc tramped
    east toward Gromheort.
     "Why?" His cousin leered. "Because I broke things up before you got
    her trousers down? I'm so sorry." He pressed his hands over his heart.
     Ealstan shoved him hard - hard enough to send a couple of yellow
    horseman's mushrooms flying out of his basket. "No, because you say
    things like that," Ealstan told him. "And if you say any more of them, I
    will pop you one, and it'll curse well serve you right."
     Sidroc picked up the mushrooms. He looked ready to fight, too, and
    Ealstan, despite his hot words, wasn't quite sure he'd come out on top if
    they did tangle. Then Sidroc pointed and started to laugh. "Go ahead,
    first-rank master of innocence, tell me that's the basket your mother gave
    you when you set out this morning."
     Ealstan looked down. When he looked up again, he was glaring at his
    cousin. "She's got mine, I guess. That's because you couldn't have done
    a better job of driving her away if you'd hunted her with hounds."
     Whatever Sidroc started to say in response to that, the look on
    Ealstan's face persuaded him it would not be a good idea. Side by side,
    they walked on in grim silence. The Algarvian soldiers at the gate looked
    at their baskets of mushrooms, made disgusted faces, and waved them
    into Gromheort.
     Once they were out of earshot of the guards, Sidroc said, "Suppose I
    told them you got that basket from a Kaunian hussy? How do you think
    they'd like that?"
     "Suppose I told your father what you just said?" Ealstan answered,
    looking at his cousin as if he'd found him under a flat rock. "How do you
    think he'd like that?" Sidroc didn't reply, but his expression was elo-
    quent. They didn't say another word to each other till they got back to
    Ealstan's house. Silence seemed a better idea than anything they might
    have said.
     "You're back sooner than I thought you would be," Conberge said
     when they brought their laden baskets into the kitchen. Neither Ealstan

    




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    Harry Turtledove
    
    nor Sidroc said anything to that, either. Ealstan's sister glanced from o
    to the other. She looked as if she might be on the point of asking so
    sharp questions, but the only one that came out was, "Well, what ha
    you got for me?"
     Sidroc set his basket on the counter. "I did pretty well," he said.
     "So did I," Ealstan said, and set his basket beside his cousin's. 0
    then did he remember that it wasn't his basket - it was Vanai's. Too I
    to do anything about that, too. He'd only look like a fool if he snatch
    the basket away now. He waited to see what would happen.
     At first, Conberge noticed only the mushrooms. "I thought the
    of you went out together. Except for some oyster mushrooms and
    couple of others, it doesn't look like you were within nuiles of ea
    other."
     Sidroc didn't say anything. Ealstan didn't say anything, either.
    much silence from them was out of the ordinary. Conberge eyed the
    both again, and let out a sniff before going back to her sorting.
     Some things were almost too obvious to notice. She'd nearly finish
    the job before she stopped, a mushroom in her hand. "This isn't t
    basket Mother gave you, Ealstan." She set the mushrooms on
    counter, frowning as she did so. "In fact, this isn't any of our baskets,
    it?"
     "No." Ealstan decided to put the best light on things he could: "I
    trading mushrooms with a friend, and we ended up trading baskets, to,
    We didn't even know we'd done it till we'd both headed for home--j
    you think Mother will be angry? It's as nice as any of our baskets."
     His innocent tones wouldn't have passed muster even if Sidroc ha
    been standing there like an egg about to burst. "T rading mushrooms Wi
    a friend, were you?" his sister said, raising an eyebrow. "Was she pret
     Ealstan's mouth fell open. He felt himself flushing. Forthwegi
    were swarthy, but not, he was mournfully sure, swarthy enough t
    keep a blush like his from showing. Before he could say anytfillig
    Sidroc did it for him - or to him: "I saw her. She's pretty enough f,
    a Kaunian."
    
     "Oh," Conberge said, and went back to sorting through the las C
    mushrooms.
     Her other eyebrow had risen at Sidroc's announcement, but that N~as
    n't a big enough reaction to suit him. "Didn't you hear me?" he sl

    




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    465
    
    loudly. "She's a Kaunian. She wears her trousers vcry tight, too." He ran
    his tongue over his lips.
     "She does not!" Ealstan exclaimed. He found himself explaining to his
    sister: "Her name's Vanal. She lives over in Oyngestun. We swapped
    mushrooms last year, too."
     "She's a Kaunian," Sidroc repeated yet again.
     "I heard you the first time," Conberge told him, an edge to her voice.
    "Do you know what you sound like? You sound like an Algarvian."
     If that was supposed to quell Sidroc, it failed. "So what if I do?" he
    said, tossing his head. "Everybody in this house sounds like a Kaunian-
    lover. You ask me, the redheads are going down the right ley line there."
     "Nobody asked you," Ealstan growled. He was about to point out that
    Kaunians had helped his brother escape from the captives' camp. At the
    last instant, he didn't. His cousin had already spoken of something that
    sounded like blackmail. Ealstan didn't think Sidroc meant it seriously, but
    didn't see the need to give him more charges for his stick, either.
     It was Sidroc's turn to go red. Whatever he rmight have said then, he
    didn't, because someone pounded on the front door. "That win be
    Leofsig," Ealstan said. "Why don't you go let him in?"
     Sidroc went, looking glad to escape. Ealstan was glad to see him go
    before things started blazing again. By her sigh, so was Conberge. She said,
    "Powers above, but I wish Uncle Hengist would find someplace else to
    stay. He's not so bad - in fact, he's not bad at all, but Sidroc . . ." She rolled
    her eyes.
    
      "They're family," Ealstan said.
     I know," Conberge said. "We could be staying with them as easily as
    the other way round. I know that, too." She sighed again. "But he is such
    a..." Her right hand folded into a fist. She'd been able to thump Ealstan
    tight up to the day, a few years before, she'd decided it was unladylike.
    He didn't think she could now, but he wouldn't have cared to make the
    experiment.
      "He knows everything," Ealstan said. "If you don't believe me, ask
    
    v4 "He wants to know everything." His sister's fist got harder and tighter.
    In a low, furious voice, she blurted, "I think he's tried to peek at me
    when I'm getting dressed." Ealstan whirled in the direction Sidroc had
    gone. Maybe he had murder, or something close to it, on his face,

    




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    Harry Turtledove
    
    because Conberge caught him by the arm and held him back. "No, don't
    do anything. I don't know for sure. I can't prove it. I just think so."
     "That's disgusting," Ealstan said, but he eased enough so that
    Conberge let him go. "Does Mother know?"
     She shook her head. "No. I haven't told anybody. I wish I hadn't told
    you, but I was fed up with him."
     "I don't blame you," Ealstan said. "If Father knew, though, he'd wal-
    lop him. Powers above, if Uncle Hengist knew, he'd wallop him, too."
    He didn't say what Leofsig might do. He was afraid to think about that -
    it rmght be lethal. He took death and dying much more seriously than he
    had before the start of the war.
     "Hush," Conberge said now. "Here they come." Ealstan nodded; he
    heard the approaching footsteps, too.
     In Leofsig's presence, Sidroc was more subdued than he was around
    Ealstan; Leofsig, visibly a man grown, intimidated him in ways Ealstan
    could not. At the moment, Leofsig was visibly a man grown tired. "Give
    me a cup of wine, Conberge," he said, "something to cut the dust in my
    throat before I go down to the baths and get clean. The water will be
    cold, but I don't care. Mother and Father won't want me around smelling
    the way I do - I'm sure of that."
    
     As Conberge poured the wine, she said, "Mother and
    to have you around no matter what - and so am L"
     Being Leofsig's brother, Ealstan could say, "I'm not so sure I am," ~iiid
    wrinkle his nose. Leofsig didn't do anything but punch him in the upper
    arm, not too hard. But when Sidroc presumed to guffaw, both EalstaD
    and Leofsig gave him such stony stares, he took himself elsewhere in a
    hurry.
     Leofsig drank down the rough red wine in three or four gulps. fie
    wiped his mouth on the sleeve of his tunic. It was already so filthy, a little
    wine would do it no further harm. "That's good," he said. "The only,~
    trouble with it is, it makes me want to go to sleep, and I do need to kidic
    first. "
     "You're wearing yourself out, working as a laborer," Conbe _~ said
                                          rge
    womedly. "You know enough to be Father's assistant. I don't see W , h~
    you wear yourself out with a pick and shovel instead."
     "Aye, I know enough to be his assistant - and I know enough mt to
    be, too," Leofsig answered. "For one thing, he doesn't really have s
    
    Father are gla
           I

    




    INTo THE DARKNESS
    
    he
    
    he
    
    und
    
    glad
    
    11 and
    
     pper
    alstan
    e in a
    
    s. He
    a little
    C only
    bathe
    
    ge said
    ee why
    
     not to
    have so
    
    467
    
    much work that he needs an assistant. For another, he's good at what he
    does; he even casts accounts for some of the Algarvians in Gromheort
    these days. Remember, a lot of people quietly know I'm home. I want
    to make sure it stays quiet. If he takes me along to help him in front of
    the Algarvian governor, say, it won't."
     "Well, that's so," Conberge admitted with a sigh. "But I hate to watch
    you wasting away to a nub."
     "Plenty of me left, never fear," Leofsig said. "Remember how I was
    when I first got out of the camp? Then I was a nub, not now. Now all I
    do is stink, and I can take care of that." He kissed his sister on the cheek
    and headed out again.
     Conberge sighed once more. "I wish he'd stay in more. No matter
    how well we've paid off the redheads, they will notice him if he makes
    them do it."
     "That's what he just told you," Ealstan answered. Conberge made a
    face at him. He didn't feel too happy about it himself, because he knew
    his sister had a point. He said, "If he stayed in all the time, he'd feel like
    a bear in a cage at the zoological gardens."
     "I'd rather have him be a live bear in a cage than a bearskin rug in front
    of some Algarvian's divan," Conberge said. Ealstan stood there looking
    unhappy; she'd turned his own figure against him too neatly for him to
    do anything else.
     The metaphorical bear came back about half an hour later, clean but
    looking thoroughly grim. Before Ealstan or Conberge could ask him
    what was wrong, he told them: "The Algarvians have hanged a Kaunian
    in the market square in front of the baths. He was one of the fellows who
    escaped with me."
    
     Leofiig reported to his labor gang the next morning wondering if he
    should be lying low instead. If the redheads had squeezed the Kaunian
     hard enough before they hanged him, or if the fellow had sung on his
     own, trying to save his own skin, the new masters of Gromheort would
     be able to scoop him up with the greatest of ease.
      Had the escaped and recaptured captive sung, though, the Algarvians
     could have surrounded his house and dragged him away in irons the night
     before. He took that to mean the Kaunian had kept quiet, or maybe that
     the redheads" hadn't known the right questions to ask.
    
           PEI"

    




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    Harry Turtledove
    
     No kilted soldiers shouted his name and pointed sticks at him. A
    couple of them, the friendlier ones, nodded as he came up to report. The
    one who bossed his group gave forth with another of his two-words
    bursts of Forthwegian: "Working good!"
     "Aye," Leofsig said. He sounded unenthusiastic. The soldier laughed
    a laugh that said he wasn't slamming down cobblestones himself
     But Leofsig, unlike a lot of his comrades, honestly did not mind the
    work. Before he'd gone into King Penda's levy, he'd been a student and
    an apprentice bookkeeper: he'd worked with his head, not with his hands
    and back. In the Forthwegian army, though, he'd discovered, as some
    bright young men do, that work with the hands and back had satisfactions
    of its own. A job wasn't right or wrong, only done or undone, and get-
    ting it from undone to done required only time and effort, not thought.
    He could think about other things or, if he chose to, about nothing at all.
     And, in the army and on the labor gang, he'd hardened in a way he'd
    never imagined. Only muscle lay between skin and bone, but more
    muscle than he'd dreamt of carrying. He'd been on the plump side before
    going into the army. His service there and in the gang would have takeii
    care of that even without the intervening months in the captives' camp.
    He doubted he'd ever be plump again.
     "All right!" the Algarvian straw boss shouted. "We go. Work hard.
    Plenty cobblestones." Sure enough, he sounded perfectly happy. A lot
    people got even more satisfaction from watching others do hard physic~il
    labor than from doing it themselves.
     Under his two-word bursts of what he thought was enthusiasm,
    labor gang tramped down a road leading northwest till they got to
    point where the cobbles stopped. They'd worked on the road leadil)(T
    southwest tin they'd gone too far for them to march out frorn
    Gromheort, do a decent day's work, and then march back. Laborers -a
    lot of them probably Kauman laborers - from towns and villages farther
    on down that road would be paving it now.
     Mule-drawn wagons hauled the labor gang's tools and the stones NVI
    which they would be paving this stretch of road. The wagons I iro
    rattled and banged over the cobblestones already in the roa
    Leofsig's comrade Burgred winced at the racket. "Shouldn't have 11 so
    much wine last night," he said. "My head wants to fall off, and I blo
    well wish it would."

    




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    INTo THE DARKNESS
    
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     "Wagons wouldn't make so much noise on a dirt road, sure enough,"
    Leofsig said, showing more sympathy than he felt - nobody'd held a stick
    to Burgred's head and made him get drunk, and if this was the first hang-
    over he'd ever had, then Leofsig was a slant-eyed Kaunian. He went on,
    "Of course, they'd go hub-deep in mud when it rained. The redheads
    don't want that."
     "I wish I'd go hub-deep in mud about now," Burgred said - sure
    enough, he was much the worse for wear this morning.
     Passing by some meadow mushrooms, Leofsig stepped out into the
    field in which they grew to pick them and store them in his belt pouch.
    "Meadow mushrooms are better than no mushrooms at all," he said to
    Burgred. He had to repeat himself, because the noise from the wagons
    was particularly fierce. Burgred looked as if the only mushrooms he
    would have wanted then were some of the lethal variety, to put him out
    of his misery.
     Like most Algarvians, the straw boss had a low opinion of what
    Forthwegians and Kaunians reckoned delicacies. "Mushrooms bad," he
    said, sticking out his tongue and making a horrible face. "Mushrooms
    poisonous. Mushrooms disgusting." He spat on a cobblestone.
     "Powers above," Leofsig said softly. "Even the yellow-hairs know
    better than that." Kaunians and local delicacies were both on his mind;
    he'd heard rather different versions from Sidroc and from his own brother
    about the Kaunian girl Ealstan had met in the woods while out hunting
    mushrooms. Sidroc had them all but betrothed, but Sidroc's mouth
    generally outran his wits.
    
     Leofsig eyed Burgred. Mentioning Kaunians to him was a calculated
    jab. He responded to it, sure enough, but not in the way Leofsig had
    
     expected, saying, "Ought to hang all the stinking Kaunians, same as the
     redheads hanged that one bugger back in town. Serve 'em right."
      "They're not that bad," Leofsig said, which was about as far as he could
     go without putting himself in danger. "What did they ever do to you?"
      "They're Kaunians," Burgred said, which seemed to be the only
     answer he thought necessary. Several of the men in the labor gang were
     Kaunians, too, but Burgred didn't bother trying to keep his voice down.
     He took it for granted that the blonds would know what he thought of
     them. Maybe they took it for granted, too, because, while a couple of
     them must have heard him, they didn't get anprrv.

    




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    Harry Turtledove
    
     No. In the captives' camp, Leofsig had got to know Kaunians better
    than he had before. They got angry. They didn't show it. Had they dared
    show it in Forthweg, they would soon have become a tinier minority
    than they already were.
     Before he could take that thought any further, they came to the end
    of the cobbled stretch of road. When the wagons stopped, Burgred let out
    a theatrical sigh of relief. The Algarvian soldier pointed dramatically
    toward the northeast. "Moving on!" he cnied. Even in his bits of
    Forthwegian, he made the prospect of setting stones in the roadbed more
    exciting than one of Leofsig's countrymen could do.
     Not all the stones in the wagon were proper rounded cobblestones. A
    lot of them came from the rubble left over from the fighting in
    Gromheort. Whenever Leofsig picked up one of those, he tried to see if
    he could figure out from what building it had come. He'd succeeded a
    couple of times, but only a couple. Most of them were just anonymous
    chunks of masonry.
     He laughed at himself He couldn't help thinking, even on a job as
    mindless as roadbuilding. He watched Burgred carry a stone from the
    wagon to the roadway, dig out the roadbed so his stone would lie more
    or less level with its neighbors, and then slam it into place. Was Burgred
    doing much in the way of thinking while he did that? Leofsig had his J
    doubts. Leofsig doubted Burgred did much in the way of thinking any
    time.
     Leofsig was carrying a stone - another anonymous bit of rubble -
    his own to what would be its place in the roadbed when the Algarvi
    straw boss let out a furious shout. "Who doing?" he demanded, pointing
    to a stone some ten or twenty feet away from the present border betwe
    paving and dirt. "Who doing?" From his point of view, he had a tight to
    be exercised: the stone jaggedly projected half a foot above its fellows.
     No one in the labor gang said anything. No one had been close to the
    stone when the Algarvian noticed it. Any one of four or five diffe t
    men might have set it there. Nobody'd paid any attention.
     "Must have been one of the Kaunians,'-' Burgred said. "Hang 'em
     "Sabotage bad," the straw boss said. Sabotage was a fancy word, but one
    that tied in with hisjob. He shook his head. "Very bad. Killing sabotagers.7
    
     "Oh, aye," Leofsig murmured. "That's clever, isn't it? Now whoever
    did it is sure to admit it."

    




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    IocVCr
    
    471
    
     "Hang a couple of Kaunians," Burgred repeated loudly. "Nobody wi
    miss the whoresons, and then we can get on with the fornicating road.'
     One of the blond men in the labor gang took a couple of steps towar
    him. I have a wife," he said. "I have children. I have a mother. I have
    father. I know who he is, too, which is more than you can say."
     Burgred needed a bit to get that. For a couple of heartbeats, Leofsi
    thought he wouldn't, which would have been convenient. Probabl
    because it would have been convenient, it didn't happen. "Call me a bas
    tard, will you?" Burgred roared, and started toward the Kaunian.
     Leofsig brought him down with a tackle as fierce and illegal as the on
    he'd used to level Sidroc. He'd regretted that one, because he should hav
    let his cousin keep going. He wasn't the least bit sorry about knockin
    Burgred over. Burgred wasn't very happy about it, though. They roHe(
    on the cobbles and then off the cobbles and on to the dirt, pummelinE
    each other.
     "You stopping!" the Algarvian yelled at them. They didn't stop. Hu
    either of them stopped, the other would have gone right on domE
    damage. The straw boss turned to the laborers. "Stopping they!"
     The men from the work gang pulled Leofsig and Burgred apart.
    Leofslg had a cut lip and a bruised cheek. Burgred, he saw, had a bloody
    nose and a black eye. Leofsig's ribs ached. He hoped Burgred's did, too.
      "Kaunian-lover," Burgred snarled.
    
     "Oh, shut up, you cursed fool," Leofsig answered wearily. "When you
    start talking about hanging people, you can't really be surprised if they
    insult you. Besides" - he spoke quietly so the Algarvian soldier wouldn't
    follow - "when we quarrel, who laughs? The redheads, that's who."
    
     Had he just talked about Kaunians, he never would have got Burgred
     to pay him any attention. But Burgred did glance over at the straw boss.
     When he shrugged off the hands that restrained him, it wasn't so he could
     get at either LeofsIg or the Kaunian. "A pestilence take 'em all," he
     muttered.
    
      "No pay." The Algarvian pointed at Leofsig. "No pay." He pointed
     at Burgred. "No pay." He pointed at the Kaunian who'd questioned
     Burgred's legitimacy.
      I don't lose much," the Kaunian said.
    
      Ignoring that, the Algarvian went on, "No treason. No sabotage."
      He'd learned the Forthwegian words he needed to know, all right. He

    




    472
    
    Harry Turtledove
    
    pointed back at the offending chunk of stone. "Fixing that. One more?
    Losing heads." This time, he pointed to everyone in the work gang in
    turn. By the expressions on the laborers' faces, none of them,
    Forthwegians or Kaunians, thought he was Joking.
     A tall, blond Kaunian and a couple of stocky, swarthy Forthwegians
    broke up the offending stone. They didn't quarrel about kho did what.
    In the face of the straw boss's threat, that didn't matter. Getting the work
    done mattered, and they did it. Leofsig watched them with a certain sour
     s* f 'on. Under the threat of death, they might have become broth-
    atis acti                   1
    ers. Without it ... ? He sighed and went back to work.
    
    I I

    




    17.
    
    When he served the Sibian Navy, Cornelu had rarely ridden Eforiel to
    the south, toward the land of the Ice People. Sibiu had worried - and had
    had reason to worry - about Algarve. Almost all the time he'd spent
    aboard his leviathan had been in the channel between his island kingdom
    and the mainland of Derlaval to the north.
     Now Lagoas had sent him and Eforiel down toward the austral conti-
    nent. He wished the powers that be in Setubal had chosen to send him a
    couple of months earlier. Despite his rubber suit, despite the sorcery the
    Lagoan mages had added to the suit, he was chilly. Of course, the waters
    around the land of the Ice People weren't warm even in high summer,
    such as it was down near the bottom of the world. Now ... the sea had-
    n't started freezing yet, but it wouldn't be long.
     Comelu's teeth might have felt like chattering, but Efoniel thought the
    Lagoans had sent her (and, incidentally, her rider) to a fine restaurant. For
    reasons mages had never been able to fathom, fish flourished in the ffigid
    waters of the Narrow Sea. Eforiel put on more blubber with every mile
    she swam. It did a betterjob of keeping her warm than rubber and mage-
      t did for her master.
    
     Thanks to the Lagoans, he'd taught her a new trick. At his tapped
     command, she stood on her tall, thrusting the front part of her body up
     out of the water. That let Cornelu, who clung not far back of her blow-
     hole, see farther than he could have from a couple of feet above the
     surface of the sea.
      He sighed. The Lagoans were clever, no doubt about it. They hadn't
     invaded his kingdom. They had taken him in as an exile. He wished he
     liked them better. He wished he liked them at all.
      Whether he liked them or not, he preferred them to the Algarvians,
    
    473

    




    474
    
    Harry Turtledove
    
    whom he actively despised. Lagoas being the only kingdom still in the
    fight against Algarve, she perforce had his allegiance. He urged Eforiel up
    on her tail once more. Was that smoke he saw, there to the southwest?
     "Aye, it is," he said, and urged the leviathan toward it.
     Mizpah was falling. Had the Yaninans; put their full effort into the
    attack on the Lagoan towns at the edge of the land of the Ice People,
    
    Mizpah would have fallen long since. But King Tsavellas kept most of his
    men at home, to watch the border with Unkerlant. Cornelu wasn't sure
    whether that made Tsavellas wise or foolish. King Swernmel. was likely to
    go to war against Yanina. If he did, though, a few regiments wouldn't do
    much to slow him down. They might have been used to better purpose
    on the austral continent.
     King Tsavellas had chosen other-wise, though. Because of that, the
    Lagoans and their nomad allies still had a grip on Mizpah, even if the
    Yaninans; finally had fought their way into egg-tosser range, which meant
    the outpost would not hold much longer. But the Lagoans had the
    chance to salvage some of what they thought important from Mizpah
    before it fell.
     "A fugitive king and a mage," Comelu said to Eforiel. "I can see that.
    Both will be useful, and the Lagoans love what is useful. But I wager plenty
    of other people in Mizpah would sooner we were con-ting for them."
     Eforiel's jaw closed on a good-sized squid -that swam right in front of
    her. By the way she frisked under Cornelu, she would be delighted to
    visit these waters again. Cornelu gently patted the leviathan. By the time
    she took these men back to Lagoas, Mizpah would not be worth visiting,
    not for anyone with Lagoas's interests in 1mnd. He couldn't explain th
    to the leviathan, and didn't bother trying.
     "A little spit of land east of the harbor," Cornelu murmured. That wis
    where the fugitives were supposed to be. He wondered if they could gct
    there with the Yaninans investing Mizpah. He shrugged. If they weren't
    there, he couldn't very well pick them up.
     He had Eforiel rear in the water again. If that wasn t the right spit
    land, there a few hundred yards ahead, he didn't know what would 1)
    He didn't see any people on it. He shrugged again. The Lagoan officen
    who sent him forth had thought the fugitives would be there.
     "Oh, aye," one of them had saidjust before he and Eforiel left Setti~j
    harbor. "The one of them has a name for getting out of scraps - and the

    




    INTo THE DARKNESS
    
    475
    
    mage isn't supposed to be bad at it, either." Comelu remembered the
    fellow laughing uproariously at his own sally. Among Lagoans, it passed
    for wit.
     Cornelu was harder to amuse. These days, nothing less than the
    prospect of King Mezentio's palace going up in flames, and all of Trapani
    with it, would have set him to laughing uproariously. He would have
    howled like a wolf for that, laughed like a loon. Even thinking about it
    with no likelihood of its happening was enough - more than enough -
    to make him smile.
     He urged Eforiel closer to the end of the spit of land. Maybe the mage
    and the king hadn't got there yet. Maybe the mage would detect his
    arrival by some occult means and hurry out to meet him. Maybe, maybe,
    maybe ...
     He blinked. He would have taken oath ... a proper oath, an oath on
    the name of King Burebistu - the spit was empty of people. Had he done
    so, he would have been forsworn. Suddenly, he saw two men there, one
    tall and lean and of Algarvic stock, the other shorter and stockier with,
    aye, a Forthwegian or Unkerlanter look. They saw him, too, or more
    likely the leviathan, and began to wave.
     He had rubber suits along for men of their builds. If the mage knew
    his business, he'd be able to keep himself and his royal companion from
    freezing in this icy water. If he didn't - Cornelu shrugged one more time.
    He himself would do everything he could. What he c*ouldn't do, he
    wouldn't worry about.
     He brought Eforiel in toward the land as close as he dared. Having her
    beach herself wouldn't do, here and now even less than most other places
    and times. Cornelu slid off her back and swam toward the rocky, muddy
    land, pushing ahead of him a bladder that held the rubber suits.
     When he came up on to the land, the mage greeted him with a slew
    of almost incomprehensible Lagoan. "Slow," Cornelu. said. "I speak only
    a little." He pointed to the five crowns on the chest of his own rubber
    suit. "Cornelu. From Sibiu. Exile." That was one word of Lagoan he
    knew vety well.
     "I speak Sibian," the mage said, and he did, with a good accent - none
    of the variations on Algarvian that most Lagoans thought were Cornelu's
    native language. The fellow went on, "I am Fernao, and here before you
    you see King Penda of Forthweg."
    
    is
    
    re
    
    to
    do
    
    ose
    
    that.
    enty
    
    nt of
    ed to
    time
    iting,
     that
    
    at Was
    
    d get
    eren't
    
    spit of
     Id be.
     fficers
    
    Setubal

    




    and the
    
    I

    




    476
    
    Harry Turtledove
    
     "I speak Algarvian - not Sibian, I fear," Penda said.
     Comelu bowed. "I also speak Algarvian, your Majesty: better than I
    would like," he said. The king of Forthweg scowled at that, scowled and
    nodded.
     "We are all speaking too much," the mage said in Sibian, and repeated
    himself in what Cornelu presumed to be Forthwegian. Whatever lan-
    guage he spoke, he made good sense. Turning back to Cornelu, he went
    on, "I presume those are suits to keep us from coming back to Setubal as
    if packed in ice?"
     "Aye." Comelu opened the bladder. "The suits, and whatever pro-
    tective magic you can add to them. Warmth and breathing underwater
    would be useful, I expect."
     The mage said, "Aye, I expected as much. I can do all that. Useful, you
    call the breathing spell? A good word for it, I would say. I will have to
    drop the magic that keeps people from noticing much about the spit. I
    tried not to project much of it out to sea; I'm glad you could find us."
     "I can see how you might be," Cornelu agreed, his voice dry.
    we shall surely have much to discuss - at another time. Do now what you
    must do, that we may leave this place and eventually gain the leisure in
    which to hold such a discussion. For we have none here and now."
     "There you speak the truth," Fernao said. He translated the truth into
    Forthwegian for Penda's benefit - though, if the king spoke Algarvian,
    he could probably follow some Sibian. Penda nodded and made aa~
    imperious gesture, as if to say, Well, get on with it, then.
     Get on with it Fernao did. Cornelu-knew the exact moment when thc
    Lagoan mage abandoned the spell that drew eyes in Mizpah - and OLIt-
    side the Lagoan outpost - away from the spit of land. The Yaninan
    attackers, suddenly noticing people out there, began tossing eggs at them.
     They were less than accomplished. Cornelu, accustomed to soldiers
    trained to higher standards, found their aim laughable and alariming at the
    same time. It was laughable because none of the eggs came very close to
    him. It was alarming because some of those eggs came down in the war
    of the Narrow Sea - the waters where Eforiel waited. A spectacularly ba
    toss rmght prove as disastrous as a spectacularly good one. If, while mlss-
    ing Cornelu and the men he had come to take away, the Yaninans, hit
    leviathan, they would have done what they'd set out to do though
    might not know it.

    




    INTo THE DARKNESS
    
   on
    to
    t.
    
    11
    
    knd
    
    you
    
    into
    ian,
    e an
    
   n the
    out-
    
    ninan
    them.
    Idiers
    at the
    lose to
    waters
    rly bad
    e miss-
    hit his
    gh they
    
    477
    
     I suggest you make haste," Cornelu said to Fernao.
     I am making haste," the mage snarled through clenched teeth when
    he reached a point where he could pause in his incanting. Cornelu
    chuckled, recognizing the annoyance any good professional showed at
    having his elbow joggled. Cornelu understood and sympathized with
    that. Even so, he wished Fernao would make haste a little more quickly
    - or a lot more quickly.
     After what seemed far too long - and after a couple of eggs had burst
    much closer than Cornelu would have liked - the mage declared, I am
    ready." As if to prove as much, he pulled off his tunic and stepped out of
    his kilt, standing naked and shivering on the little spit of land. Penda imi-
    tated him. The king's body had more muscle and less fat than Comelu
    would have guessed from seeing him clothed.
     Both men rapidly donned the rubber suits Cornelu had brought, and
    the ffippers that went with them. "And now," the Sibian exile said, "I sug-
    gest we delay no more. Eforiel awaits us in the direction from which I
    came up on to the land." He pointed, hoping with all his heart that Eforiel
    did still await them there. He didn't think the Yaninans had hit her, and
    didn't think they could frighten her away if they hadn't. He didn't want
    to discover he'd been disastrously wrong on either of those counts.
     As he turned and started for the water, King Penda said, "Eforiel? A
    woman? Do I understand you?"
     "No, or not exactly," Cornelu answered with a smide. "Eforiel - a
    leviathan."
     "Ali," Penda said. "You in the south are much more given to training
    and riding them than we have ever been."
     "Another discussion that will have to wait," said Fernao, who showed
    more sense than the fugitive king. Fernao splashed into the sea and struck
    out for Eforiel with a breast stroke that was determined if not very fast.
    Penda swam on his back, windmilling his arms over his head one after the
    other. He put Cornelu more in nuind of a rickety rowboat than a por-
    poise, but he didn't look like sinking.
     Comelu shot past both of them, which was just as well. They would
     not have been glad to meet Eforiel without him there to let her know it
     was all right. As he drew near the leviathan, or to where he hoped she
     was, he slapped the water in a signal to which she had been trained to
     respond.

    




    478
    
    Harry Turtledove
    
     Respond she did, raising her toothy beak out of the water. Comelu
    took his place on her back, then waited for his passengers. They were
    gasping when they reached the leviathan, but reach her they did. Comelu
    slapped her smooth hide and sent her off toward the northeast, toward
    warmer water, toward warmer weather.
    
     HajjaJ never relished a visit to the Unkerlanter rministry. He particu-
    larly did not relish it when Minister Ansovald summoned him as if he
    were a servant, a hireling. People kept insisting Unkerlanter arrogance
    had its limits. The Unkerlanters seemed intent on proving people wrong.
     With autumn having come to Bishah, HajaJ minded putting on
    clothes less than he did in summertime. And long, loose Unkerlanter
    tunics were less oppressive than the garments in which other peoples
    chose to encase themselves. Having to wear the clinging tunics and
    trousers of the Kaunian kingdoms was almost enough by itself to make
    the Zuwayzi foreign minister glad Algarve had conquered them and
    relieved him of the need.
     As usual, Ansovald was blunt to the point of rudeness. No sooner had
    Hajaj been escorted into his presence than he snapped, "I hear you ha
    been holding discussions with the Algarvian minister."      71~
     "Your Excellency, I have indeed," HajaJ replied.
     Ansovald's eyes popped. "You admit it?"
     "I could scarcely deny it," HaJjaj said. "Discussing things with t
    ministers of other kingdoms is, after all, the purpose for which i-nv
    sovereign sees fit to employ me. In the past ten days, I have met with the
    minister of Algarve, as you said, and also with the ministers of Lago,
    Kuusamo, Gyongyos, Yanina, the mountain kingdom of Ortah,
    now, twice with your honorable self
     "You are plotting against Unkerlant, plotting against King Swerturid."
    Ansovald said, as if HajaJ had not spoken.    -0
     "Your Excellency, that I must and do deny," the Zuwayzi fort-il
    minister said evenly.
                                             -1
                                             he
    
     "I think you are lying," Ansovald said.
     Hajaj got to his feet and bowed. "That is, of course, your privilege,
    your Excellency. But you have gone beyond the usages acceptable in
    diplomacy. I will see you another day, when you find yourself in better
    control of your judgment."

    




    icu-
    if he
    
    anter
    eoples
    s and
    make
     and
    
    er had
    u have
    
                                     ith the
                                      ich my
                                     ith the
                                     Lagoas,
                                     ah, and,
    
    emmel,"
    
    i foreign
    
    privilege,
     ptable in
     in better
    
    INTo THE DARKNESS
    
    479
    
     "Sit down," Ansovald growled. Hajaj' took no notice of him, but
    started toward the door. Behind him, the Unkerlanter minister let out a
    long, exasperated breath. "You had better sit down, your Excellency, or
    it will be the worse for your kingdom."
     One hand on the latch, Hajaj' paused and spoke over his shoulder:
    "How could Unkerlant treat Zuwayza worse than she has already done?"
    His tone was acid; he wondered if Ansovald noticed.
     "Do you really care to find out?" the Unkerlanter minister said. "Go
    through that door, and I claresay you will."
     However much he wanted to, Haijaj could not ignore such a threat.
    Reluctantly, he turned back toward Ansovald. "Very well, your
    Excellency, I listen. Under duress of that sort, what choice have I but to
    listen?"
     "None," Ansovald said cheerfully. "That's what you get for not being
    strong. Now sit back down and hear me out." Hajaj' obeyed, though his
    back was stiff as an offended cat's. Ansovald paid no attention to his silent
    outrage. The Unkerlanter minister raised crude brutality almost to an art.
    He pointed a stubby finger at Haijaj. "You are not to hold any more
    meetings with Count Balastro, on pain of war with my kingdom."
     Hajaj started to get up and walk out again. Ansovald's demand was
    one no representative of any kingdom had the right to make on the
    foreign minister of another kingdom. But Hajaj* knew King Swernmel
    only too well. If he openly defied the Unkerlanter minister here,
    Swenimel would conclude he had good reason to defy him, and would
    hurl an army of men in rock-gray tunics toward the north.
     Swemmel might even be right, though his minister here would not
    know that. Ansovald leaned back in his chair, smugly delighted to see
    Ha~aj squirm. One reason he was good at bullying was that he enjoyed
    it so much. Hajaj temporized: "Surely, your Excellency, you cannot
    expect me to refuse all intercourse with the minister from Algarve.
    Should he order me to do such a thing in regard to you, I would of course
    refuse."
     Ansovald stopped leaning back and leaned forward instead, alarm and
    anger on his strong-featured face. "Has he ordered you to stop seeing
    me?" he demanded. "How dare he order you to do such a thing?"
     What he did, he took for granted. That anyone else might presume to
    do the same thing was an outrage. Hajaj' might have laughed, had he not

    




    480
    
    Harry Turtledove
    
    felt more like crying. "I assure you, it was but a hypothetical comme
    the Zuwayzi foreign minister said, and spent the next little while smo
    ing Ansovald's ruffled feathers. When Hajjaj finally judged
    Unkerlanter minister soothed enough, he resumed: "I can hardly
    him at receptions and the like, you know."
     "Oh, aye - that sort ofbusiness doesn't count," Ansovald said. HajaJ
    been far from sure he would prove even so reasonable. The Unke
    pointed at him again. "But when you and Balastro put your heads toge
    for hours on end-" He shook his own head. "That won't do."
     "And if he invites me to the Algarvian ministry, as you have in
    me here?" HaJjaJJ asked, silentlv adding: to himself, He would be more p
    about it, that's certain.
     "Refuse him," Ansovald said.
    
     "He will ask me why. Shall I tell him?" Hajjaj inquired. Anso
    opened his mouth, then abruptly closed it again. HaJjaJ said, "Y
    Excellency, I think you begin to see my difficulty. If 1, the fore
    minister of a sovereign kingdom, am forbidden to see the representa
    of another sovereign kingdom, would not that second kingdom rec
    the kingdom that had forbidden me guilty of insult against it?"
     With a certain malicious amusement, he watched the Unkerla
    minister's lips move as he worked his way through that. Ansovald was
    swift, but he wasn't stupid, either. He took a bit, but got the right answ
    Algarve will think Unkerlant guilty of insult. Considering what
    Algarvians had done to every foe they'd faced in the Derlavaian
    Hajaj would not have wanted them thinking him guilty of insult.
     By the expression on Ansovald's face, he didn't want that, eith
    HajaJ politely looked away while the Unkerlanter minister coughed
    tugged at his ear and pulled loose a small flap of skin by his thumbnail.
    last, Ansovald said, "Maybe I was a little hasty here."
     From a Zuwayzi, that would have been a polite commonplace. F
    an Unkerlanter, and especially from King Swernmel's representati
    Bishah, it was an astonishing admission. When Ansovald did 't
    inclined to come out with anything-more, HaJjaJ asked a gentle
    "In that case, your Excellency, what should my course be?"
     Again, Ansovald didn't answer right away. HaJjaJJ understood
    Unkerlanter minister had just realized that following instructions h
    from Cottbus was likely to lead him into disaster. But not following an

    




    INT(-) THE DARKNESS
    
    anter
    s not
    
    swer:
    t the
    War,
    
    ither.
    d and
    all. At
    
     From
    tive in
    It seem
     estion:
    
     hy: the
    he'd got
    ing any
    
    481
    
    order he got from Cottbus was also likely to lead him into disaster. As
    Ansovald dithered, Haijaj* smiled benignly.
     With a sigh, Ansovald said, "I spoke too soon. Unless I summon you
    again, you may ignore what has passed between us here."
     Unless King Swemmel decides he doesn't mind insulting the Algarvians, was
    what that had to mean. Now HaJjaj had to fight to hide surprise. Might
    Swelmnel think of taking such a chance? Haijaj* had often wondered
    whether the king of Unkerlant was crazy. Up till now, he'd never
    thought him stupid.
    . He wished the state of King Swernmel's wits didn't matter so much to
    Zuwayza. Far easier, far more reassuring, to think of it as Ansovald's
    problem and none of his own. He couldn't do that, worse luck. If
    Unkerlant caught cold, Zuwayza started sneezing - and Unkerlant went
    as Swemmel went.
     Ha~aj also wished he could take Ansovald down a peg - down several
    pegs - for his insolence and arrogance. He couldn't do that, either, not
    when he'd just got what he wanted from the Unkerlanter. He said, "Let
    it be as you desire, your Excellency. I tell you truly, we have seen - an of
    Derlaval has seen - enough of war this past year and more. I wish with
    all my heart that we may have seen the end of it."
     Ansovald only grunted in response to that. Haijai had trouble figuring
    out what the grunt meant. Was it skepticism, because Zuwayza had lost
    one war to Unkerlant and could be expected to want revenge? Or did
    Ansovald know Swemmel was indeed contemplating war against
    Algarve? For all Ha~aj's skill in diplomacy, he saw no way to ask without
    waking suspicions better left to slumber.
     Rousing somewhat, Ansovald said, "I think we have done everything
     we can do today."
    
     They'd alarmed each other. Ansovald had intended to harm Hajaj. He
     hadn't intended to be alarmed in return. Well, Hajjaj thought, life does not
     always turn out as you intend. He got to his feet. "I think you are right, your
     Excellency. As always, a meeting with you is most instructive."
     He left the Unkerlanter minister chewing on that and not nearly sure
     he liked the flavor. Getting out among his own people was a pleasure,
     going back to the palace a larger one, and pulling the tunic off over his
    
     head the greatest of all. Once comfortably naked, he went to report the
     conversation to King Shazli.

    




    482
    
    Harry Turtledove
    
     There he found himself balked. "Do you not recall, your Excellency?"
    one of Shazli's servitors said. "His Majesty is out hawking this afternoon."
     HaJjaJJ thumped his forehead with the heel of his hand. "I'd forgotten,"
    he adrm'tted.
     The servitor stared at him. He understood why: he wasn't supposed to
    forget anything, and came close enough to living up to that to make his
    lapses notable. He stared at her, too; she was worth staring at. Idly - well,
    a little more than idly - he wondered what sort of amusement she would
    make. Lalla really had grown too extravagant to justify the pleasure he got
    from her.
     Resolutely, HaJjaJJ pushed such thoughts aside. He still craved the
    pleasures of the flesh, but not so often as he once had. Now he could
    recognize that other business Irmight take precedence over such pleasure,
    With a last, slightly regretful, glance at the serving woman, he returned
    to his office.
     He considered using the crystal there, but in the end decided against
    it. He did not think Unkerlanter mages could listen to what he said, but
    did not want to discover he was wrong. Paper and ink and a trusty nies-
    senger would do the job.
     Your Excellency, he wrote, and then a summary of the relevant parts of
    his recent conversation with Ansovald. He had sanded the document
    when Shaddad appeared in the doorway. "How do you do that?" Hq-01J
    asked as he sealed the letter with ribbon and wax. "Come just when
    you're wanted, I mean?"
     "I have no idea, your Excellency," his secretary replied. "I am p
    however, that you find me useful."
     "I find you rather more than useful, as you know perfectly well,
    Hajoj said. "If you would be so kind as to put this in a plain pouch and
    deliver it . . ."
     "Of course," Shaddad said. Only a slight flaring of his nostrils showed
    his opinion as he went on, "I suppose you will expect me to CIO
    myself, too."
     "As a matter of fact, no," the Zuwayzi foreign minister said, aii
    Shaddad smiled in glad surprise. HaJjaJJ continued, "You will be less con-
    spicuous without mufflings, and there are times - and this is one of dlem
    - when discretion seems wisest. just take this over to the Algarvian
    minister like the good fellow you are."

    




    484
    
    Harry Turtledove
    
     Both men laughed. Neither's laugh was altogether comfortable,
    though. Truth was, Waddo could talk to Cottbus and they couldn't. And
    if he wasn't talking to Cottbus, they had no way of knowing that, either.
    They'd always been powerless when measured against inspectors. Now
    they were powerless against their own firstman, too. Ganivald shook his
    head. That wasn't how things were supposed to be.
     He shook his head again. It wouldn't really matter till spring. Not even
    the most energetic firstman, which Waddo wasn't, would be able to
    accomplish much during winter in southern Unkerlant. The peasants
    would stay indoors as often as theycould, stay warm as best they could,
    and drink as much as they could. Anyone who expected anything
    different was doomed to disappointment.
     Interrupting Ganivald's caravan of thought, Dagulf said, "I hear tell
    Marshal Rathar got on Swernmel's bad side some way or other. Don't
    know how much good your crystal attuned to him will do you."
     "Now that I think on it, I heard that, too." Garivald threw his hands
    in the air. "Isn't that the way things turn out? You go to all the trouble
    to get the cursed crystal, and then it's not worth anything." He spoke
    with almost as much regret and resentment as if a crystal really did sit on
    the mantel above his fireplace,
     Dagulf played along with him. "Ali, well, maybe you can attune it to
    the new marshal, whoever he turns out to be - and then to the one after
    him, too, when Swernmel decides he won't answer."
     Gativald looked back toward the gaol again. No, the guards couldn't
    possibly have heard that. He didn't even think Dagulf s neighbors could
    have heard it. Still . . . "You want to be careful what you say," he told
    Dagulf "Now word really can get back to Cottbus, and you won't be
    happy if it does."
     "You're a good fellow to have around, Garivald," Dagulf said. "You
    brought back my hone, and I didn't even have to come over and tell yow
    I was going to burn down your house to get it. And you're right about
    this other nonsense, too. It's like having somebody peeking in your
    window all the time, is what it is."
     "You're too ugly for anybody to want to peek in your windoNv.
    Garivald said, not wanting an unfounded reputation as a paragon to get
    out of hand.
     "My wife says the same thing, so maybe you've got something thetc,"

    




    ou
    
    out
    
    our
    
    W,
    
    11
    
    INTo THE DARKNESS
    
    485
    
    Dagulf answered. "But I still get some every now and then, so I must be
    doing something right."
     Snorting, Garivald turned and headed back toward his own house. As
    he passed the cell he'd helped build, he paused in the drizzle to listen to
    one of the captives singing. It was a song about a boy falling in love with
    a girl - what else was there to write songs about, except a girl falling in
    love with a boy? - but not one Ganivald had heard before. People had
    been singing most of the songs he knew for generations.
     The captive had a fine, resonant baritone. Garivald didn't. He liked to
    sing anyway. He listened attentively, picking up tune and lyrics. Sure
    enough, it was a city song: it talked about paved streets and parks and the
    theater and other things he'd never know. It had an odd feeling to it, too,
    a feeling of impermanence, as if it didn't really matter whether he got the
    girl or not: if he didn't, he could always find another one. Things weren't
    like that in Zossen, or in any of the countless other villages dotting the
    broad plains and forests of Unkerlant.
     "City song," Garivald muttered. He didn't walk away, though, even
    if he and Dagulf had just spent the last little while running down Cottbus
    and everything it stood for. He stood listening tin the captive finished,
    and wasn't sorry when the fellow started over again. That gave him the
    chance to pick up the words to the first part of the first verse, which he'd
    missed while talking with Dagulf.
     He was singing the song - not loudly, feeling his way through it -
    when he came in the door. His wife didn't need to hear more than
    a couple of lines before she said, "Where did you pick that up? It's
    new.
    
     "One of the captives was singing it," Ganivald answered. He groped
    for the next line and discovered he couldn't find it. "Ahh, curse it, you
    made me mess it up. Now I have to go back to the beginning."
      "Well, do, then." Annore turned away from the dough she was knead-
     ing. Her arms were pale almost to the elbows with flour. "Been a while
     ~ince we've had a new song. That one sounded good, even if you haven't
     got the best voice in the village."
      "I thank you, dear," Garivald said, though he knew she was night. He
     thought for a moment - how did that first verse go? - then plunged back
     in. He wasn't so good a singer as the captive, but he remembered all the
     words,and didn't do too much violence to the tune. Annore heard him
    
    I

    




    486
    
    Harry Turtledove
    
    out without a sound. Her lips moved a couple of times as she fixed
    phrases in her mind.
     "That's a good song," she said when he was through, and then,
    thoughtfully, "Well, a pretty good song. It's ... strange, isn't it? I bet it
    come out of Cottbus."
     "I bet you're right," Ganivald agreed. "If we hadn't got married for
    one reason or another, I'd still be a bachelor, and I'd be frantic about it.
    But the fellow in the song? 'Another boat at the dock, Another bird in
    the flock."' After singing the lines, he shook his head. "Anybody wants
    to know, that's not the way people ought to think."
     Annore nodded. "We have too many men chasing women who aren't
    their wives the way things are."
     Gari'vald could think of only a couple of such cases in Zossen since
    he'd started paying attention to what men and women did. Maybe even
    a couple seemed too many to Annore. He could also think of a couple of
    women who'd gone after men not their husbands. If he brought them up,
    he was sure his wife would find something to say in their defense ~ince
    he was sure, he didn't bother. They found enough things to quarrel about
    without looking for more.
     He did say, "Even if the words are peculiar, I like the tune."
     "So do U' Annore hummed it. Her voice was high and pure, a good
    deal better and more pliable than Garivald's. After a verse or so, she
    clicked her tongue between her teeth. "I do wish it had better words.
    Somebody should put better words to the tune."
     "Who?" Gari'vald asked - a good question, since no one in Zossen had,,
    ever shown any signs of talent along those lines. "Waddo, maybe?" He
    rolled his eyes to make sure Annore knew he was j oking.
     "Oh, aye, he'd be the perfect one." His wife rolled her eyes, too.
     ... Another story on his house,"' Garivald sang to the tune of the cap-
    tive's song. "'A fancy crystal for the louse."'
     He and Annore both laughed. She looked thoughtfully at him. "Do
    you know, that's not bad," she said. "Maybe you could make a real sOI)g,
    not just a couple of lines poking fun at Waddo.
     "I couldn't do that," Garivald exclaimed.
     "Why not?" Annore asked. "You started to."
    
     "But I'm not a person who makes songs," Ganivald said. "Peopfe Wh'O
    make songs are " He stopped. He had no idea what people who made

    




    INTo THE DARKNESS
    
    r
    
    it.
    
    in
    
    nts
    
    ii~t
    
    nce
    
    ven
    e of
    
    good
    I she
    ords.
    
    had
    He
    
    e cap-
    
    "Do
    
    song,
    
    le who
    o made
    
    487
    
    songs were like, not really. Every so often, a traveling singer would come
    through Zossen. The only thing he knew about them was that they drank
    too much. Once, back before he was born, a traveling singer passing
    through Zossen had left with a peasant's daughter. People still gossiped
    about it; the girl seemed to get both younger and more beautiful every year.
     "Well, if you don't want to . Annore shrugged and went back to
    kneading dough. She also went back to humnung the new song.
     Gari'vald stood there rubbing his chin. Words crowded his head. Some
    of them were words from the song. The first verse was fine, and anybody
    could lose a girl he'd thought would be his for good. But what he did
    afterwards, what he thought afterwards, how he felt afterwards ... Maybe
    someone up in Cottbus would do those things, would think and feel
    those things, but nobody in Zossen or any other peasant village would.
     A line occurred to Ganivald, and then a word that rhymed with it. He
    had to cast about for the rest of the line that would go with the word. He
    wished he could read and write. Being able to put things down so they
    didn't keep trying to change in his head would have helped. Waddo
    could do it. So could a couple of other men in the village. Ganivald had
    never had time to learn.
     But he had a capacious memory - partly because he couldn't read and
    write, though he didn't realize that. He kept playing with words, throw-
    ing away most of them, keeping a few. Leuba woke up from a nap. He
    hardly noticed Annore taking her out of the cradle: he was looking for a
    word that rhymed with harvest.
     Half an hour later, he said, "Listen to this." Annore came in from the
    kitchen again. She cocked her head to one side, waiting. Ganivald turned
    away, suddenly shy in front of her. But, even if he couldn't face her, he
    loosed his indifferent voice.
     Only when he was through did he look back toward her. He tried to
    read the expression on her face. Surprise and ... was she crying? He'd
    tried to make a sad song - it had to be a sad song - but ... could she be
    crying? "That's good," she sniffed. "That's very good."
     He stared, astonished. He'd never imagined he could do such a thing.
    Maybe a you g swallow felt the same way the first time it scrambled out
    of its nest, leaped off a branch, and spread its wings. "Powers above,"

    




    Ganivald whispered. "I can fly-"

    




    488
    
    Harry Turtledove
    
     Bembo lifted a long-stemmed wine glass. "Here's to you, pretty one,"
    he said, beaming across the caf& table at Saffa.
    
     The sketch artist raised her own glass. "Here's to your good notion,
    and to the bonus Captain Sasso gave you for it."
     Since he was spending some of that bonus to take her out, Bembo
    drank to the toast. He hoped the bonus wasn't the only reason she'd
    finally let him take her to supper. If she was that mercenary ... he didn't
    want to know about it night now. He took another sip of his own wine
    - better than he usually bought. "I'm a man on the way up, I am," he
    said.
     Something glinted dangerous in Saffa's eyes. Whatever the egg of her
    thought was, though, she didn't drop it on his head, as she assuredly
    would have before. "Maybe you are," she said after no more than the
    slightest pause. "You didn't start pawing me the instant I came out of my
    flat. That's certainly an improvement."
     "How do you know?" he said, and pressed a hand to his heart, the pic-
    ture of affronted dignity. "You never let me meet you at your flat
    before. "
     "Do I look like a fool?" Saffa asked, which made Bembo go through
    another pantomime routine. Her laugh showed very sharp, white, even
    teeth. He wondered if she'd finally chosen to go out with him in hope of
    a good time (either vertical or ho14zontal) or in the expectation of sink-
    ing teeth and claws into him later on. That might mean a good time for
    
    her, but he didn't think he would enjoy it.
     To keep from thinking about it, he said, "Good to see Tricanico lit up
    again at night."
     "Aye, it is," Saffa agreed. "We're too far north for any dragon front
    Lagoas to reach us here, and we've beaten our other enemies." Pnide ning
    in her voice. She glanced at Bembo with more warmth than he was used
    to seeing from her. "And you helped, spotting those cursed Kaunijus
    with their dyed hair."                   I
     Before Bembo could go on for a while about what an alert, clever fel-'
    low he was, the waiter brought supper, which might have been just as
    well. Saffa had trout, Bembo strips of duck breast in a wine-based s,111C
    He didn't usually eat such a splendid meal; he couldn't usually affords
    a splendid meal. Since he could tonight, he made the most of it. I~q
    Saffa emptied another bottle of wine during supper.

    




    INTo THE DAR-KNESS
    
    489
    
     Afterwards, as they walked to the theater, she let him put an arm
    around her shoulder. A few steps later, she let him slide it down to her
    waist. But when, as if by accident, his hand brushed the bottom of her
    breast, her heel came down hard on his big toe, also as if by accident.
     "I'm so sorry," she murmured in tones that couldn't have meant any-
    thing but, Don't push your luck. With a good deal of wine in him, Bembo
    promptly did push his luck, and as promptly got stepped on again. After
    that, he concluded Saffa might have been dropping a hint.
     At the theater, the usher eyed Saffa appreciatively but gave what passed
    for Bmbo's best tunic and kilt a fishy stare. Still, Bembo had tickets enti-
    tling him and Saffa to a pair of medium-good seats. Whatever the usher's
    opinion of his wardrobe, the fellow had no choice but to guide him
    down to where he belonged. "Enjoy the production, sir - and you,
    milady," the young man said, bowing over Saffa's hand.
     Bembo tipped him, more to get rid of him than for any other reason.
    Saffa let the constable slip an arm over her shoulder again. This time, he
    had the sense not to go exploring further. The house lights dimmed.
    Actors pranced out on stage, declaiming.
     "I knew it would be another costume drama," Bembo whispered.
     "They're all the rage these days," Saffa whispered back. Her breath was
    warm and moist in his ear.
     Up on the stage, actors and actresses in blond wigs played imperial
    Kaunians, all of them plotting ways and means to keep the dauntless, vir-
    fle Algarvians out of the Empire - and the women falling into clinches
    with the Algarvian chieftains every chance they got. The story might
    have been taken straight from one of the historical romances Bembo had
    been devouring lately. Along with the rest of the audience, he whooped
    when a Kaunian noblewoman's tunic and trousers came flying over the
    screen that hid her bed from the spectators.
     Afterwards, Saffa asked, "Do you suppose it was really like that?"
     "Must have been," Bembo answered. "If it wasn't, how would we
    
    ever have beaten the cursed Kaunians?"
     "I don't know," the sketch artist admitted. She yawned, not too
    theatrically. "You'd better take me home. We both have to work in the
    morning.
    
     "Did you have to remind me?" Bembo said, but he knew sl

    




    490
    
    Harry Turtledove
    
     Outside her flat, she let him kiss her - actually, she kissed him. When
    his hands wandered, she stretched and purred like a cat. Then he tried to
    get one under her kilt, and she twisted away from him. "Maybe one of
    these nights," she said. "Maybe - but not tonight." She kissed him on the
    end of the nose, then slipped into her flat and had the door barred before
    Bembo could make a move to follow her.
     He wasn't so angry as he thought he should have been. Even if he
    hadn't bedded her, he'd come closer than he'd expected he would - and
    she hadn't clawed him too badly after all. Not a perfect evening (had it
    been a perfect evening, she would have reached under his kilt), but not
    bad, either.
     He still looked happy the next morning, so much so that Sergeant
    Pesaro leered. "What were you doing?" he said, in tones suggesting he
    already knew the broad outlines but wanted the juicy details. He made a
    formidable interrogator, whether grilling cninuinals, or constables.
     Since Bembo had no juicy details to give him, and since Saffa would
    kill him or make him wish she had if he invented some, all he said
    was, "A gentleman goes out of his way to protect the reputation of a
    lady. "
     "Since when are you a gentleman? For that matter, since when is Saffa
    a lady?" Pesaro wasn't trying to get her to flip up her kilt, so he could say
    what he pleased. Bembo just shrugged. Pesaro muttered under his breath,
    then went on, "All right, if you won't talk, you won't. I can't beat it out
    of you, the way I can with the ordinary lags. Anyhow, there's a goodjob
    of work ahead for the force today."
     Ah?" Bembo's ears came to attention. So, rather lackadaisically, did the
    rest of him. "What's toward, Sergeant?"
     "We're going to round up all the cursed Kaunians in town.,, Pesaro
    spoke with considerable satisfaction. "Order came in just after midnight
    by crystal from Trapani, from the Ministry for Protection of the Realm.
    Everybody's been having kittens since you caught the blonds dyeing thor
    hair. King Mezentio's decided we can't take the chance of letting'em ruil
    around loose any more, so we won't. They'll be pulling 'em in all ovcr
    Algarve. "
    
     "Well, that's pretty good," Bembo said. "I bet we got nid of a lot
    spies that way. Probably should have done it back at the start of the war,
    if anybody wants to know what I think. If we had done it back at the start

    




    I
    
                                       aro
                                       ght
    
    I-
    
    ver
    
    of
    
    ar,
    
    TNJ~Cl 'FLJM T_)AUWNM1Z-,
    
    491
    
    of the war, my guess is the stinking Jelgavans wouldn t have come half so
    
    close to taking Tnicanico."
    
     "Nobody cares what you guess," Pesaro said. But then he checked
    himself, after Bembo had discovered the Kaunlans dyeing their hair, that
    might be less true now than a few weeks before. Grimacing at the absur-
    dity of having to take Bembo seriously, the sergeant went on, "No mat-
    ter when they should have done it, they are doing it now. We've got lists
    of known Kaunians, and we're going to send constables out in pairs to
    -A-e sure the don't give us a touoh time Or if thev trv that thev'll be
    
    s" He f
    orry. olded a meaty hand into a fist.
    
     Bembo nodded. Inside, he was laughing. Pesaro sounded tough, as if
    he'd be hauling in Kaunians himself instead of sending out ordinary con-
    stables like Bembo to do the lob. The sergeant's comment stlarked
    
    another thought, an important one: "Who are you pairing with me?"
    
    "Have to check the roster." Sergeant Pesaro ran a fat finger down it.
    
    "I've got you with Oraste. Does that suit?'
    
    "Aye," Bembo said. "He's not one to back away from trouble. And
    
    we've worked together before, in a manner of speaking - he helped me
    
    bring in that Balozio remember?'
    
     "I didn't, no, but I do now that you remind me of it," Pesaro said. The
    doors to the station house swung open. In came Oraste, as broad through
    the shoulders as a Forthwegian. "Just the man I'm looking for!" Pesaro
    exclaimed happily, and explained to Oraste what he'd just told Bembo.
     Oraste listened, scratched his head, nodded, and said, "Give us the list,
    
    Sergeant and we'll get at it. You ready, Bembo?"
    
     "Aye." Bembo wasn't so ready as all that, but didn't see how he could
    say anything else. He was glad to have Oraste at his side precisely because
    Oraste never backed awav from anvone or anything. Oraste didn't back
    
    away from duty, either
    
     The first Kaunians on the list were Falsirone and Evadne. "Those
    don't look like Kaunian names," Oraste said, but then he shrugged.
    "Doesn't matter what thev call themselves. If thev're Kaunians, thev're
    
    gone.
    
     Falsirone and Evadne stared in dismay when the constables strode into
    their tonsonial parlor. They stared in horror when Bembo told them why

    




    the constables had come. Pointing a finger at him, Evadne shrilled, "You

    




    Harry Turtledove
    
     "You're not in trouble for that," Bembo said, strangling the guilt that
    crept out from the dark places at the bottom of his mind. "This is only a
    precaution, till the war is safely won." He didn't know that - no one had
    said anything of the sort - but it seemed a redsonable guess.
     Oraste smacked his club into the palm of his hand. "Get moving," he
    said flatly.
     "But what about everything here?" Evadne wailed, waving an arm to
    show off the shop and everything in it.
    
     Bembo glanced at Oraste. Oraste's face had not the slightest particle
    give in it. Bembo decided he had better not show any give, either.
    "Hazard of war," he said. "Now come along. We haven't got all day
    here."
    
     Still complaining loudly and bitterly - still acting very much as verita-
    ble Algarvians; would have done - Evadne and Falsirone came. Bembo,
    and Oraste led them to the park where Bembo had spent his unhappy
    hours as an emergency militiaman. More constables, and some soldiers as
    well, took charge of them there. "On to the next," Oraste said.
     The next proved to be a prominent restaurateur. Bembo unders
    another reason why his superiors had sent constables out in pairs: it made
    them harder to bribe. With Oraste glaring at him as if looking for the
    smallest excuse to beat him bloody, the Kaunian didn't even try, but
    came along meek as a lamb heading for sacrifice. Bembo let out a silen
    sigh. He would have been much more reasonable.
     When he and Oraste got to the third establishment on their list, they
    found it empty. Oraste scowled. "Some other bastards beat us to it," he
    said.
     "I don't think so," Bembo answered. I think word's out on the str
    A lot of blonds will be figuning they ought to disappear."
     "We'll get 'em," Oraste said. "Sooner or later, we'll get 'em."
     By nightfall, the constables had rounded up several hundred Kaunians.
    Almost an equal number, though, had not been there to round up.
    Despite that, Captain Sasso said, "Good job, men. The kingdom'5,lo
    overdue for a cleanup, and we're the fellows who can take care of it.
    When we're done when the war is won, Algarve will be a better place."
     "That's right," Oraste said, and Bembo nodded, too.
    
    Istvan longed for the days when the worst Sergeant Jokai could do to

    




    INTo THE DARKNESS
    
    493
    
    him was send him off to shovel dragon shit or to serve as a dowser's beast
    of burden. jokai was dead these days, smashed to bits when a Kuusaman
    egg burst too close to him. For all practical purposes, Istvan was a sergeant
    himself, though no officer had formally conveyed the rank on him. He
    was a veteran on Obuda, and the soldiers he led new-come reinforce-
    ments. Having stayed alive gave him moral authority even without rank.
     "Here," he said, pointing to a clump of bushes. "These fruits stay good
    even when they're dried out and wrinkled like that. Grab as many as you
    can; stars above only know when we'll see any proper meals again."
     . "What are these fruits called?" asked one of the new men, a thin,
    bespectacled fellow named Kun.
     "Curse me if I know," Istvan answered. "The Obuclans have a name
    for'em, but I don't know what it is. Names don't matter, anyhow. What
    matters is, like I said, they're good to eat. With the supply system all bug-
    gered up the way it is, I think I'd eat a goat if one came strolling up the
    path."
     Some of the men laughed and nodded. Some of them looked revolted.
    Despite profane bravado, Istvan wasn't sure if he would really eat goat.
    Only a starving Gyongyosian would even think of such a thing - a starv-
    ing Gyongyosian or a depraved one. When he was a boy, four men in the
    next valley over from his had been caught at a ritual supper of goat stew
    after they'd murdered - and done worse things to - a pregnant woman.
    No clan feud had started when they were buried alive. Even their own
    families thought they deserved it, as much for the goat-eating as for their
    other crimes.
    
      Kun cleared his throat a couple of times and said, "Names always mat-
     ter. Names are part of the fabric from which reality is woven. If your
     name were different, you would not be the man you are, nor I, nor any
     of us. The same must surely hold true for these fruits."
      He was, as he seldom let anyone forget, a mage's apprentice. He was
     also a bumbler, as tales said mages' apprentices often were. Istvan mar-
     veled that he still lived when better men had died around him.
     Sometimes pretending not to understand him was the best way to stop
     him from going on and on. Istvan tried it: "If these fruits had a different
     ri,,unc, I think I'd still be the man I am."
       "That is not what I meant," Kun said, giving him an indignant look
      over the top of those spectacles. "What I meant was-" He paused,

    




    494
    
    Harry Turtledove
    
    looking foolish, as the possibility that Istvan might have been making
    
                                1
    joke occurred to him. That took longer than it should have. Istvan
    surprised it happened at all.
     Before he could finish the job of putting Kun in his place, eggs start
    falling not far away. The men he led had been on Obuda and in acti
    long enough to know what that meant. Istvan thought he was the first
    throw himself flat, but none of the rest was more than a moment behi
    him.
    
     The ground shuddered under him. Leaves and twigs fell on his bac
    someone close by cursed as a branch a good deal bigger than a twig ca
    down on his leg. Through the din of bursting eggs and falling trees, Istva
    shouted, "Now - is that us trying to kill the Kaunians or them trying
    kill us?"
    
     "If you like, I will undertake a divination to find out," Kun said.
     "Never mind." Istvan shook his head, dislodging the end of a twi
    from his ear. "If one of those lands on us, we end up dead either way.
    Kun couldn't very well argue with that, and so, for a wonder, he didn'
     A dragon screeched, just above the treetops. It was, Istvan though
    unhappily, more likely to be flown by a Kuusaman than by one of h
    own countrymen. The Kuusamans were able to bring dragons by th
    shipload from out of the east, where Gyongyos had to fly them fro
    island to island to get them to Obuda. Because the Gyongyosian drago
    inevitably arrived worn, the beasts from Kuusamo had the better of it i
    the air.
     "I wish we could drive the Kuusarnan fleet out of these waters," Istvan
    muttered, his face still in the dirt. He sighed. "I suppose the little slant-
    eyed sons of billy goats wish they could drive our fleet out of these
    waters. "
    
     Sometimes (mostly by night, for looking for a good view by day wa
    asking a Kuusaman sniper to put a beam in one ear and out the other), he
    would look out at the warships tossing eggs and blazing at one another,
    Neither side, as yet, was able to keep the other from reinforcing its -arm
    on Obuda. A lot of ships had gone to wreckage and twisted met
    though. He wondered which side could go on throwing them
    fight longer than the other.
     More screeches overhead, and then the noise, like a dozen men
    being sick at once, of a dragon flaming. The sound that followed was h

    




    t-     i
    
    INTo THE DAPKNESS
    
    495
    
    a screech but a shriek. More sounds came: the sounds of a large body
    crashing down through the canopy of leaves and branches above the
    Gyongyosians and then thrashing about on the ground only a stone's
    throw away.
     Istvan scrambled to his feet. "Come on," he called to his men. "Let's
    get rid of that cursed thing before it flames half the forest afire. Let's see
    what we can do about the flier, too. He might not be dead - he didn't
    fall that far."
     "If he's a Kuusaman, we'll take care of that," Szonyi said. He might
    not have done any fighting till the men from the far east invaded, but he
    was a veteran now.
     "Aye," Istvan said. "Either we kill him or we send him back so our
    officers can squeeze him." Normally, Istvan would have done the latter.
    As things were, he'd been on his own for a couple of days, and wasn't
    sure where to send a captive if he got one.
     Getting one, he realized, wouldn't be easy. That dragon might have
    been flamed out of the sky, but it was a long way from dead; branches
    must have done a better job than usual of cushioning its fall. It sounded
    as if it were trying to knock down every tree it could reach. It didn't
    flame, though, which argued it still had a flier on its back: an unrestrained
    dragon would have vented its fury every way it could.
     Kun pointed ahead. "There it is," he said unnecessarily: that great scaly
    tail could not have belonged to any other beast. At the moment, it was
    doing duty for a flail, smashing bushes to bits.
     "Surround it," Istvan said. "Blaze for the eyes or the mouth. Sooner
    or later we'll kill it. And watch out for the flier. He's liable to be blazing
    at you while you're blazing at the dragon.
     "I find that highly unlikely," Kun said. But he did as Istvan told him,
    so Istvan couldn't come down on him for talking back. Istvan couldn't
    come down hard on him for talking back, anyhow - a disadvantage of
    lacking formal rank.
     Spreading out to surround the dragon made the Gyongyosians cast
    their net widely indeed. The beast was still doing its best to level the
    woods. It couldn't knock over large trees. With that exception, its best
    was quite good; a stampeding behemoth would have been hard pressed
    to match it.
      lst\,~in pccrcd through the bushes toward it. Sure enough, it was a

    




    496
    
    Harry Turtledove
    
    Kuusaman dragon, painted in sea green and sky blue. Its night wing and
    a stretch of the body behind the wing were charred and black. Without
    a doubt, a Gyongyosian dragon had won that duel in the air. But the
    Kuusaman still somehow astride it at the base of its neck seemed alert and
    not badly hurt. He had a stick in his hands and was looking now this way,
    now that, ready for anything that might happen to him.
     For a moment, Istvan wondered why he didn't get off the dragon and
    make for the woods. Then he realized the dragon was liable to squash the
    flier if he dismounted. He raised his own stick to his shoulder and sighted
    along it. Before he could blaze, the Kuusaman did, but at someone off to
    the other side. A hoarse cry said the dragonflier hit what he'd blazed at,
    too.
     When Istvan blazed at the Kuusaman, the fellow jerked as if stung.
    But, even if Istvan's beam bit, it didn't knock the foe out of the fight. The
    fellow used his own stick as a goad, and the dragon, hurt though it was,,J
    obeyed the command he gave it. Its head swung toward Istvan. He bla2:eii
    at it, but it kept turning his way. Its jaws opened enormously, preposter-
    ously, wide. Flame shot from those jaws, straight at Istvan.
     He thought he was a dead man. Though it was daylight, he looked up
    toward the heavens, toward the stars where he expected his spirit would
    go. But the sheet of flame fell short. Trees and bushes between the dragon
    and him began to bum. He threw hishands up in front of his face to pro-
    tect himself from the blast of the heat, but the fire did not quite reach
    him. He stumbled backwards, his lungs feeling seared from the one breath
    of flame-heated air he'd drawn in.
    
     Coughing, he staggered off to one side of the fire. It would spread, lut
    not quickly; Obuda had had a lot of rain lately, so the plants were full
    juice. The dragon was swinging its head away from Istvan now. It flamc
    again. A shriek of anguish announced that whoever it flamed at this Wine
    hadn't been far enough away to escape the fire.
     Istvan blazed at the dragonflier again. His comrades were doing the
    same now. At last, after what seemed like forever, the Kuusaman slumped J
    down on his dragon's neck, the stick slipping from his fingers. The
    dragon, with no one controlling it, began sending bursts of flame in ill
    directions - until it had no flame left to send.
    
     After that, disposing of the great beast was relatively easy, for the
    Gyongyosians could approach without fear. When it opened its mouth

    




    INTo THE DARKNESS
    
    he
    all
    
    the
    uth
    
    497
    
    and tried to flame Szonyi, he sent a beam through the soft tissue inside
    that maw and into its brain. Its head flopped down. The body kept
    thrashing a while longer, too stupid to realize right away that it was dead.
     Kun nodded to Istvan. Istvan nodded back, in some surprise; he
    thought the dragon had flamed the mage's apprentice. Kun looked sur-
    prised, too. Pointing to the dead Kuusaman flier, he said, "You were
    right. Those little demons really can fight bravely."
     "Too night they can," Istvan answered. "If they couldn't, don't you
    think we'd have thrown 'em off this island long since?"
     "We did throw'em off this island once," Szonyl said. "The whoresons
    came back." He paused. "I suppose that says something about them."
     "Aye," Istvan said. "They aren't Gyongyosians - they aren't warriors
    born - but they're men." He pulled a knife from his belt and advanced
    on the dragon's carcass. "I'm going to worry a tooth or two, by the stars.
    When I go back to my valley one of these days, I'll wear a dragon's fang
    on a chain around my neck. That should keep some of the local tough
    boys quiet." He smiled in anticipation.
     He wasn't the only soldier who took a souvenir from the dragon,
    either. Kun cut several fangs from its mouth. "I ought to be able to get
    some sort of sorcerous use out of these," he said. "And, as Istvan says, one
    worn around the neck will be a potent charm against bullies."
     "We earned them, sure enough." Szonyi I s hands were bloody, as were
    Istvan's. They both kept rubbing them on the ground. Even a dragon's
    blood burned.
       e, we earned them," Istvan said. "Now we have to hope we drive
    the Kuusamans off this stinking island and that we get off it ourselves.
    A moment later, he wished he'd spoken as if that were assured. For
    better or worse, though, he'd seen too much fighting to fool himself for
    
     Leudast squelched through mud. What the Forthwegians called roads
    were hardly better than their Unkerlanter equivalents: good enough
    when dry, boggy when wet. "Wait till the snow starts falling," Sergeant
    Magnulf said. "They'll harden up again then."
     "Aye," Leudast said. "But winters are milder here than they are farther
    south, you know. It's not always one blizzard after another. Only some-
    tunes."
    
    I

    




    498
    
    Harry Turtledove
    
     "That's right - you're from not far from these parts, aren't you?"
    Magnulf said.
     "Farther west, of course," Leudast answered. "Fifty, maybe a hundred
    miles west of what used to be the border between Forthweg and
    Unkerlant. just about this far south, though, and the weather wasn't a
    whole lot different than the way it is here."
     "I'm sorry for you," Magnulf said, which made Leudast and everybody
    else in the squad laugh. After he was done laughing, Leudast wondered
    why he'd done it. The weather in most of Unkerlant was worse than it
    was hereabouts, or in the part of the kingdom where he'd grown up.
     "One good thing about the rain," a common soldier named Gernot
    said. "The cursed Algarvians aren't going to jump on our backs for a~
    while.
     "They'll drown in the muck if they try," Leudast said, at which his
    companions nodded. Some of them laughed, too, but only some. Most
    realized they would also drown in the muck if the Algarvians attacked.
     Magnulf pointed ahead. "There's the village where we're supposed to
    billet ourselves. Miserable little hole in the ground, isn't it?"
     Seen through spatters of rain, the village did look distinctly unappetiz-
    ing. The thatch-roofed cottages weren't much different from the ones in
    the village where he'd lived till the impressers dragged him into King
    Swernmel's army. Two buildings' were bigger than the rest. He knew
    what they'd be: a smithy and a tavern. The whole place, though, had a
    dispirited, rundown look to it. No one had bothered painting or w
    washing the houses for a long time. Sad clumps of dying grass stuck o
    of the ground here and there, like surviving bits of hair on the scalp of a
    man with a bad case of ringworm.
     "Powers above," Gemot muttered. "Why would anyone want to li~-C~
    in a dump like this?" Unlike his comrades, he hadn't been dragged off a
    farm, but from the streets of Cottbus. He was vague about what he'd
    done on the streets of Cottbus, which naturally made Leudast figure he
    had good reason to be vague.
    
     Magnulf said, "It'll be better than spending time under canvas, ad'v-
    way.
     "Aye, so it will," Leudast said, and wished he sounded more as if
    believed it. Maybe it's the rain, he thought. With the sun shining, the place
    had to look better. It could hardly have looked worse.

    




    INTo THE DARKNESS
    
    499
    
                   A dog started barking as the Unkerlanter soldiers drew near the village,
                 and then another and another, till they sounded like a pack of wolves in
     ed          full cry. One of them, about as big and mean-looking as a wolf, stalked
     nd          toward the soldiers stiff-legged and growling. They shouted and cursed at
    t a            it. Somebody threw a glob of mud that caught it on the end of the nose.
                 The dog let out a startled yip and sat back on its haunches.
                   "That was well done," Magnulf said, "We'd have had to blaze the
     dy                                 1
    red          cursed cur if it kept coming on."
    n it           None of the other dogs seemed quite so bold, for which Leudast was
                 duly grateful. They kept on barking, though. Doors in the peasants' huts
     ot          opened. Men and women came out - not far, staying under the protec-
    r a          tion of the overhanging eaves - to stare at the soldiers. Save only that the
                 men let their whiskers grow, they might have been Unkerlanter peasants.
    his            Leudast shook his head. Now that the Twinkings War was over,
    
    etiz-
    
    es in
    King
    new
    ad a
    
    hite-
    out
     of a
    
    o live
    off a
    he'd
    re he
    
    I any-
    
    s if he
    
    place
    
    peasants would have looked at the soldiers with pity in their eyes, not the
    sullen hatred on the faces of these people.
     Magnulf nudged him with an elbow. "You can make more sense of
    their language than the rest of us. Let 'em know what we're here for."
     "Aye, Sergeant," Leudast said resignedly. More often than not, speak-
    ing a dialect of Unkerlanter close to Forthwegian came in handy. He had
    no trouble making taverners understand what he wanted. In the last vil-
    lage where the squad had been stationed, he'd talked a reasonably pretty
    girl into sleeping with him. But he sometimes got more work to do, too,
    as now. Turning to the villagers, he asked, "Who is the firstman here?"
     No one said anything. No one moved. "Do they know what you're
    saying?" Magnulf asked.
     "They know, Sergeant. They just don't want to give me the time of
    day," Leudast answered. "I can fix that." He spoke to the Forthwegians
    again: "We will stay here. Tell me who the firstman is. We will put more
    men in his house."
     Magnulf chuckled. So did a couple of other men. Leudast had never
    known an Unkerlanter village where very many people loved their first-
    man. From what he'd seen, the Forthwegians weren't much different
    there.
     And, sure enough, several of them looked toward a stem-faced fellow
    ,xith an iron-gray beard. He glared at them and at the Unkerlanters in
    turn, as if trying to decide whom he hated more. His wife, who stood

    




    500
    
    Harry Turtledove
    
    beside him, had no doubts. Could her eyes have blazed, she would hav
    knocked down all her neighbors.
     "You are the firstman?" Leudast asked.
     "I am the firstman," the Forthwegian said. "I am called Arnulf"
    might have been an Unkerlanter name. "What do you want with us?
    Now that he had decided to speak, he spoke slowly and clearly, s
    Leudast could follow. He sounded like a man of some education, whic
    was not what Leudast would have expected from anyone in a place Ilk
    this.
     "We are to stay here," Leudast answered. "Show us houses where w
    can stay." He said no more about billeting extra men on Armilf
     "How long are you to stay here?" the firstman asked.
     Leudast shrugged. "Until our officers order us to go."
     Armilf s wife wailed and turned that terrible scowl on the firstman. "I
    could be forever!" She tugged at Arnulf s sleeve. "Make them leave;
    Make them go away."
     "And how am I to do that?" he demanded in loud, heavy exaspera-
    tion. She spoke a couple of sentences in Forthwegian too quick and
    slangy for Leudast to follow. Her husband made a fist and made as if to
    thump her with it. She snarled at him. Several of the Unkerlanter soldiers
    behind Leudast laughed. They, or men in their villages, kept women'
    line the same way.
     "Show us houses where we can stay," Leudast repeated. "Otherv~s
    we will pick the houses ourselves." Arnulfs face stayed blank. Leu
    tried again, substituting choose for pick. The firstman got it then. He didil
    like it, but he got it.
     Scowling more darkly than ever, he asked, "How many houses?"
     Leudast had to relay that to Magnulf, who answered, "Five houses,"
    and held up his hand with the fingers spread. To Leudast, he said, "TN~'o
    of our boys in each house and they won't get tempted to try arlyflill](1
    cute.
     "You will want food, too," Arnulf said, as if hoping Leudast Wo
    contradict him. Leudast didn't. Sighing, the firstman said, "The wh
    village will share in feeding you." He started pointing at villagers.
     All five of the ones he picked shouted and cursed and stomped th
    feet, none of which did them any good. Arnulf s wife screeched so
    thing at them that Leudast, again, couldn't quite follow. The viflagcrs di

    




    INTo THE DARKNESS
    
    501
    
    though, and fell silent. They might not like the idea of having
    Unkerlanters quartered among them, but they didn't want to get on the
    
    I I It
    
    e.
    
    ise,
    dast
    idn't
    
    ses,
    ,TWO
    
    thing
    
    ould
    whole
    
    their
    
    some-
    rs did,
    
    wrong side of Arnulf s wife, either.
     "This village will go hungry if we have to feed you through the win-
    ter," Armilf said.
     "Something worse will happen to you if you don't," Leuclast told him.
    He got another vicious glare for that.
     The villager whose hut he and Gernot went to take over had sons too
    young to have fought in the war. His wife was severely plain. However
    unhappy they looked, however hard they pretended not to understand
    Leudast's stabs at Forthwegian, they would have been.more worried and
    surly still had they had daughters. Leudast was sure of that. Maybe Arnulf
    hadn't chosen only people he disliked.
     Gemot complained about the porridge and cheese and black bread and
    almonds and salted olives they got to eat. "What's wrong with this stuff?"
    Leudast asked, puzzled. "Better than our rations, and that's the truth."
    He'd grown up eating just this sort of food.
     "Boring." Gernot rolled his eyes. "Very boning." Leudast shrugged.
    His belly was full. He'd never found that boring.
     After a few days, he might have been living back in his own village,
    except he didn't have to work so hard here. No one had to work so hard
    as a peasant, not even a soldier. The squad patrolled the surrounding
    countryside   't f      1
          - they weren ar from Algarvian-occupied Forthweg - and
    returned to eat and rest and amuse themselves. The villagers didn't love
    them, but their loathing grew less overt.
     Leudast liked that. Magnulf didn't. "It's like they're waiting for some-
    thing to go wrong," the veteran sergeant said. "When it does ...
     A couple of days later, it did. A Forthwegian girl stood in the village
    square, screaming that one of the Unkerlanter troops had forced her to
    lie with him. Rather to Leudast's surprise, she didn't accuse Gernot but
    a common soldier named Huk who'd always seemed too lazy to violate
    anyone. And Huk denied it now, saying she'd freely given herself to him
    and started screaming only when he wouldn't pay.
     Knowing Huk, Magnulf ruled in his favor and did not punish him.
    Leudast waited for some outburst from the villagers. It didn't come. They
    looked to Arnulf Arnulf stood by his doorway, dour but silent.
     Two nights later, Leudast woke with cramps in his belly. So did
    
    I I

    




    502
    
    Harry Turtledove
    
    Gernot, at just the same time. Their unwilling hosts stayed asleep
    apparently well. "Are we poisoned?" Gernot whispered.
     "I don't think so," Leudast whispered back. "I think we're magicked.'
    He paused, then chuckled grimly as pieces fit together in his mind. "Th
    firstman, or else his wife. But they'd have to be better mages than th
    are to break through the protections King Swernmel's soldiers get,
    They'll be sorry they tried, too. Come on."
    
     The cramps pained him, but not so much that he couldn't move. He
    and Gernot stole out of the hut. He wasn't surprised to see other
    Unkerlanter soldiers coming out of the houses where they were billete&
    When he saw Magnulf, he pointed toward the firstman's home.
    sergeant nodded.
     Behind the shutters there, a light was burning. Stick in one hand
    Leudast tried the door with the other. It wasn't barred. If Arnulf and
    wife were village wizards, who would dare steal from them? He threw
    the door wide.
     Amulf and his wife looked up in horror from where they crouc
    over an image - a cloth doll - in a rock-gray tunic. The firstman's
    still held a long, brass-headed pin in her hand. Her face twisted in.
    ghastly attempt at a smile. Arnulf knew smiles were wasted. Cursing, he
    threw himself at Leudast and the other Unkerlanters behind him.
     Leudast blazed him down, then blazed his wife, too. He also blazed the
    doll, lest a stronger mage get hold of it. "That's good," Magnulf said.
    "That's very good."
     "Aye," Leudast said. "We shouldn't have any more trouble here.

    




    18.
    
    Colonel Lurcanio came up to Krasta and gave her an extravagant
    Algarvian bow. "Milady, I am given to understand there is to be an enter-
    tainment laid on at the Viscount Valnu's this evening. Would you do me
    the honor of accompanying me there?"
     She hesitated. However well Lurcamo spoke Valrruieran, he remained
    one of the conquerors. She recalled all too well the feel of his hard hand
    against her cheek - scarcely a proper prelude to an invitation in her circle
    or any circle she knew. And, had any Algarvian sought to invite her, she
    would have preferred Captain Mosco, who was both younger and hand-
    somer than his supenior.
     Still ... Lurcanio was the more prominent of the two of them. If she
    turned him down, what would he do to her? "atever he likes rang like a
    mournful bell in her mind, a bell with a nasty undertone of fear. The
    other side of the coin was that any entertainment at Valnu's was sure to
    be lavish and likely to be scandalous. She wanted to go, both to enjoy
    herself and to be able to hold her head up among her own set.
     That decided her. With a smile the brighter for coming a beat or two
    late, she said, "Thank you, Colonel. I would be delighted."
     Lurcamo's answering simile nught have been pleased, might have been
    predatory, and was probably both at once. "Excellent!" he said, and bowed
    again. "Most excellent. Shall we meet at the front door at sunset? My driver
    will do the honors, the invitation being mine. He knows the way."
     So Lurcanio had gone to Valnu's before, had he, and without her? Her
    back stiffened. She'd make sure he didn't want to do that again. She never
    went into anything halfheartedly. When she answered, "Tin sunset, then,
    Colonel," her voice had a purr in it. She put a little extra in her walk as
    she went upstairs to primp and plan for the evening ahead. She didn't
    
    503

    




    504
    
    Harry Turtledove
    
    look back to see if the Algarvian noble's eyes were following her. She
    knew they would be.
     After bathing, after a hairdresser piled her hair into a mound of curls
    (an old-fashioned style suddenly popular again), she chose her outfit. The
    trousers of I'midnight velvet she put on were so tight, Bauska had to help
    lace them closed. "Easy, there," Kaunian wheezed. "I want to be able to
    breathe, a little.
     "Aye, milady," Bauska said, and pulled them tighter yet. Her head
                                             wa
    bent to the work, so Krasta did not see her smile. Krasta did admire the
    effect in the looking glass, which made her servant bite her lip.
     The tunic Krasta chose was filmier than the nighttime one in whic
    she had gone to upbraid Lurcanio and Mosco over the coronation of
    King Mezentio's brother as the new ruler ofjelgava. Then, though, the
    display had been inadvertent. Now it was intentional, even calculated.
    She wanted Lurcanio's eyes to pop.
     She wanted to pick the time when they would pop, too, so she draped
    a short cape of glistening beaver fur over her shoulders to let her choose
    the moment and to protect her against the chill of the autumn evening
    Snow hadn't started falling yet, but it wasn't more than a month away
     Rather knobby knees aside, Lurcanic, looked dashing in dress tun
    kilt striped in his kingdom's colors, and a broad-brimmed plumed hat. He
    bowed over Krasta's hand, then raised it to his lips. "You are lovel~, this
    evening," he murmured. "You are, no doubt, lovely every evening 10Llt
    you are particularly lovely this evening.
     "I thank you," Krasta said in a smaller voice than she'd intended
    
    Algarvian officer could be charming when he chose. That he could
    be anything but only made the charm more interesting.
     Lurcanio's driver devoured Krasta with his eyes when the colone
    handed her up into the carriage. Krasta expected Lurcanio to dress 4
    down; he was impossibly forward. Instead, laughing, Lurcanio leajicd
    forward to pat him on the shoulder and spoke to him in Algarviaii.
    Krasta caught Valnu's name. The carriage rolled forward.
     "That fellow's rude," Krasta complained.
     "No." Lurcanio laughed again, and shook his head. "He is Algal-\ iall.
    When it comes to pretty women, we do not hide what we think." He
    too looked Krasta up and down, slowly and lingeringly. She decided she
    could have done without the cape, at least as far as concealment Nvent.

    




    ut
    
    ISO
    
    nel
    
    an.
    
    an.
    He
    
    INTo THE DARKNESS
    
    505
    
    She was glad to have it, though; her breath smoked when she breathed
    out.
     Valnu's house, not far from the center of Priekule, would have been
    classically elegant had he not painted columns and frieze in gaudy colors.
    He insisted that was good classical usage, and would wave learned articles
    to prove it. As far as Krasta was concerned, classical meant plain white
    marble, and that was that. VaInu, though, had never been one to keep his
    enthusiasms from running away with him.
     He stood in the entrance hall, greeting guests as they arrived. When he
    saw Krasta, something simultaneously amused and malicious kindled in his
    eyes. He spoke to Colonel Lurcanio in Algarvian. Lurcanio raised an eye-
    brow. When he and Krasta had gone on into the main salon, he asked her,
    "Why did he say I should not be alone with you on a dark country road?"
     "You'd better ask him that, hadn't you?" Krasta said with a toss of the
    head that set her curls flying. She spotted a servant watching wraps. When
    she shrugged off her cape, she discovered that Lurcanio hadn't imagined
    everything about her, not if the way his head swiveled was any sign.
     Up on a platform at the back of the salon, a harpist and a couple of viol
    players performed one Algarvian tune after another. Used to the more
    emphatic rhythms of Valmieran music, Krasta wondered why anyone
    would bother listening to this. But Lurcanio smiled and bobbed his head
    in time to the songs that were so familiar to him, as did many of the other'
    Algarvians who had come to Valnu's residence.
     Looking around, Krasta saw that a lot of Algarvian officers and civilian
    finictionaries had come to Valnu's. They outnumbered the Valn-tieran men
    there and, almost without exception, they had very pretty girls on their
    arms. Not all the girls, or even most of them, were of noble blood, either.
    Krasta knew who was. The rest ... Opportunists, she thought scornfully.
     They were hungry opportunists, too, converging like locusts on the
    buffet Valnu's servants had set out. Some of the dishes there were hearty
    Valmieran sausages and breaded chops and the like, others more delicate,
    more elaborate Algarvian-style creations. The Algarvian soldiers and
    civilians ate in moderation. Many of the Valmierans gorged. Food, espe-
    cially fine food like this, wasn't easy to come by in Prickule these days.
     Krasta had no great interest in what the Algarvians ate, or in anything
    else new. Sausage and red cabbage suited her fine. After a couple of shots
    of sweet cherry brandy, everything Lurcanio said got wittier and funnier.

    




    506
    
    Harry Turtledove
    
    When he slipped an arm around her waist in a proprietary way, she
    snuggled against him instead of flinging brandy in his face.
     She was, by then, rather glad of that arm. It kept most of the Algarvians
    in the miHing crowd from pinching her, patting her, and feeling her up.
    Not all of them, though: that she was a colonel's companion did nothing
    to intimidate a couple of bn*gadiers and more than a couple of the civil-
    ian dignitaries who ruled occupied Valmiera.
     "Do your men always act this way?" she asked Lurcanio after snarling
    at a functionary who'd made too free with his hands and also contriving
    to step on his foot.
     "Very often," he answered calnily. "But then, our women act much
    the same way. It is the custom in our kingdom - not better or wors tha
    the customs here, simply different."
     What Krasta had heard was that all Algarvian women were slut.
    started to say as much, but checked herself She'd already seen that insult-
    ing the conquerors was not a good idea. And she'd also noted that Valnu's.
    salon, at the moment, held a good many Valmieran sluts.
     She kept looking around, spotting people she knew and seeing who
    among her set might have been there but was not. A lot of people, both
    Valrmierans and Algarvians, kept looking around. Had people who
    weren't there simply not been invited - because they were dull, say? Or-
    had they declined to come because they didn't care to be seen with the
    Algarvians? Much of the chatter was hard and brittle, a sort of crust ovcr
    things better left unsaid.
     A Valmieran band - thundering horns and thumping drums ' replace
    the musicians playing Algarvian songs. A little space cleared in the center
    of the large chamber. Couples began to dance. "Shall we?" Krasta aske
    saucily glancing up at Lurcanio.
     "And why not?" he said. He proved to dance very well, and knew
    steps that went with the Valmieran music. When the time came to hold her
    close, he didn't try to consummate things out on the dance floor, as Wnu
    had in the cellar before the Algarvian invasion. Then again, Krasta wasm
    egging him on, as she had with Valnu. Lurcamo acted as if he had noth1fla
    he needed to prove along those lines because everything was already
    decided. Krasta couldn't decide whether that miffed or excited er.
    Between dances, she drank more brandy. That helped make up her i,,1Md.
     A lot of the Algarvians were with women who had already made up

    




    he
    
    INTo THE DARKNESS
    
    507
    
    their minds. Krasta didn't see anything she hadn't seen before, but she'd
    seen a good deal. They've decided who's won the war, she thought. And if
    she had not, would she have been here on the arm of and in the arms of
    an Algarvian nobleman?
     Presently, Lurcanio leaned forward and murmured in her ear: "Shall
    we return to your mansion? I fear I have a few too many years and a bit
    too much dignity to care to make a public exhibition of myself."
     Krasta had drunk enough brandy to need a few seconds to realize what
    that meant. When she did, she hesitated, but not for long. Having gone
    this far, how could she stop? And she didn't want to stop, not now. She
    took Lurcanio's arm, reclaimed her cape, and made for the door.
     Valnu stood just outside the doorway, arm in arm with a handsome
    young Algarvian officer. He smiled dazzlingly at Krasta and Lurcanio,
    then called after them: "Don't do anything I wouldn't enjoy!" As far as
    Krasta knew, that gave them free rein.
     Lurcanio's driver smelled of brandy. He said something in Algarvian.
    He and Lurcanio both laughed. "He is jealous of me," Lurcanio said as
    he helped Krasta into the carriage. He laughed again. "He has reason to
    be jealous of me, I expect."
     When they got back to the mansion, none of Krasta's servants was in
    sight. No one watched her and Lurcanio go up the stairs to her bed-
    chamber together - or she saw no one watching, which in her imind
     amounted to the same thing.
      In the bedchamber, Lurcamo took charge, as he had throughout the
     evening. He decided a lamp would remain burning. He undressed Krasta,
     kissing and caressing her breasts after he pulled her tunic off over her head,
     then unlacing her trousers and sliding them down her legs. She sighed, at
     least as much from relief as from desire.
       But desire was there, too, and the Algarvian knew just how to fan it.
     Before long, Krasta was doing everything she could to inflame him, too.
     He was, she discovered, circumcised, which Valmieran men were not.
     "Rite of nianhood," he said. "I was fourteen." He poised himself
     Mwecii her legs. "And now for another rite of manhood."
       After the rite was accomplished - most enjoyably accomplished - they
      lay side by side. Even then, Lurcanio's hands roamed over her body.
      "You are generous to a soldier in a kingdom not his own," he said. "You

    




    508              Harry Turtledove
    
     Krasta rarely thought about being sorry. She'd never thought about it
    in the afterglow of lovemaking. She'd sometimes been angry then, which
    spoiled things, but never sorry. "Soon you Algarvians will rule the world,
    I think," she said, which was and was not an answer.
     "And you have chosen the winning side?" Lurcanio ran his fingers
    through her bush. "You see? You are a practical woman after all. Good."
    
     Even though Talsu sometimes wore his jelgavan army uniform tunic
    and trousers on the streets of Skrunda, his home town, no Algarvian
    soldier who saw him had ever given him a rough time about it. He was
    glad. He did not have so many clothes as to make it easy for him to set
    any of them aside. Nor was he the only young man in Skrunda in pieces
    of uniform. That was true of most of the former soldiers the Algarvians
    hadn't scooped into their captives' camps.
     Like his former comrades, he made money where he could, pushing a
    broom or carrying sacks of lentils or digging a foundation. One day, after
    lugging endless sacks of beans and clayjars of olive oil and sesame oil frorn
    wagons into a warehouse the Algarvians were using, he came home with
    half a dozen small silver coins stamped with the image of King Mezentio.
    They rang sweetly when he set them on the table at which his family ate.
    
                                                Im"
     "What have you got there?" his father demanded. Traku was a wide- 11F,
    shouldered man who looked as if he ought to be a tough but was in fact
    a tailor. His trade having left him shortsighted, he bent close to the coiris
    to see what they were. Once he did, he growled a curse and swept theni
    off the table and on to the floor. The cat chased one as it rolled.
    
     "What did you go and do that for, Father?" Talsu crawled around or~]&~
    hands and knees till he'd found all the money. "Powers above, it's not
    
     "I don't want that ugly whoreson's face in my house," his father
    "I don't want the fundament of that ugly whoreson's brother stinking up
    our throne, either. No redhead's got any business sitting on it. It's not
    their kingdom. It's ours, and they can't take it away from us."
     "Silver is silver," Talsu said wearily. "Theirs spends as good as ours.
    Theirs spends better than ours, because they've buggered up the
    exchange rate so the redheaded soldiers can buy pretties for theiril"-
                                             A
    tresses on the cheap."
     "They're thieves and robbers," Traku said. "They can keep thcIr
    
    like we're rich."

    




    er
    
    not
    
    urs.
    the
    
    Ills-
    
    heir
    
    INTo THE DARKNESS
    
    509
    
    cursed money, and pile my curse on top of all the others that are already
    there. "
     In from the kitchen came Talsu's mother and younger sister. His
    mother, Laitsina, carried a bowl of stew. His sister, Ausra, had a fresh-
    baked loaf of bread on a tray. The bread was an unhealthy brownish-tan
    color, not because it hadn't been baked properly but because the flour
    wasn't all it might have been. Ground beans, ground peas - Talsu hoped
    there wasn't any sawdust mixed into it.
     And the stew was more peas and beans and turnips and carrots, with
    only a few bits of meat here and there, more for flavor than for nourish-
    ment. Talsu wasn't all that sure he cared for the flavor it gave. "What is
    this stuffl" he asked, holding a bit out on his spoon.
     "The butcher says it's rabbit," his mother answered. "He charges for
    it like it's rabbit, too."
     "I haven't heard very many cats yowling on the roofs lately, though,"
    Ausra said with a twinkle in her eye. She glanced over to the little gray
    tabby that had bounded after the Algarvian silverpiece. "You hear that,
    Dustbunny? Stick your nose outside and you're liable to be a bunny for
    true."
     Talsu made sure his next spoonful of stew held no meat. After that,
    though, he ate it. If it wasn't all it imight have been, the army had inured
    him to worse. And his mother had paid for it. With things as they were,
    the family couldn't afford to let anything go to waste.
     His mother might have been thinking along with him, for she said,
    "Dear, it would be a shame not to use the silver Talsu worked so hard to
    get.
     "It's Algarvian money," Traku said stubbornly. "I don't want
    Algarvian money. We should have beaten King Mezentio's men, not the
    other way around."
     He looked at Talsu as if he thought jelgava's defeat were his son's fault.
    He'd been just too young to fight in the Six Years' War, which if any-
    thing made him take its victory even more to heart than if he'd served,
    for he didn't know firsthand what the soldiers who'd won that victory
    had endured to do it.
     I "Well, we cursed well didn't," Talsu said - he knew what soldiering
     was like. "Maybe we would have, if our precious noble officers had
     known their brains from their backsides. I can't say one way or the other

    




    510
    
    Harry Turtledove
    
    about that, because they didn't." He tore a chunk of bread off the loaf
    and took a big bite out of it.
     Traku stared. "Those are the same lies you see on the Algarvian broad-
    sheets all over town."
     "They aren't lies," Talsu said. "I was there. I saw with my own eyes.
    I heard with my own ears. I'll tell you, Father, I've got no love for the
    redheads, and I don't think they've got any business putting a king of
    their own over us. If King Donalitu comes back, that'll be fine. But if the
    Algarvians hang every duke and count and marquis before he comes
    back, that'll be even better."
     Close to a minute of silence followed. He hadn't tried to hide his bit-
    temess toward the jelgavan nobility since trudging back to Skrunda, but
    he hadn't been so blunt about it, either. At last, his father said, "That's
    treason."
     "I don't care," Talsu said, which produced more silence. Into it, lie
    went on, "And I don't think it is, not really, because the nobles don't nui
    jelgava any more. The Algarvians do, and I haven't said anything about
    them." He put the coins he'd earned back on the table. "You can have
    these if you want them. If you don't, I'll take them out and buy beer or
    wine and lemon Juice.
     His mother scooped up the Algarvian silver. "Laitsina! " his father said.
     "It's money," his mother said. "I don't care whose face is on it. If our
    king comes home, I'll shout myself silly for joy. Until he comes home -
    and after he comes home, too - I'll spend whatever money people will
    take. And if you have any sense, so will you, and you'll take any mouc~
    the redheads give you, too."
     "That's trading with the enemy," Traku protested.
     "That's making a living," Laitsina replied. "The Algarvians are herc.
    Are we supposed to starve because they're here? That's foolishness. ~With
    the kind of food we can get nowadays, we're close enough to starving
    is.
     Ausra meowed, to remind Traku what sort of meat was liable to 7 111
    the stew. Her father gave her a dirty look. Talsu
    bowl so Traku would not be able to see him laughing.
    
    looked down into his
             'I'd
             1 -1
    
     "Bah!" Traku said. "How can I say one thing when everyone e1sc III
    my family says something else? But it's a sorry day for jelgava - I will say
    that. "

    




    INTo THE DARKNESS
    
    511
    
     "That's so. It is a sorry day forjelgava," Talsu said. "But we've had too
    many sorry days lately, and the Algarvians haven't given us all of them. If
    you don't believe me, Father, ask anybody else who was in the army and
    managed to come home again in one piece.
    
    I I
    
     He expected the argument to boll up once more, but his father only
    looked disgusted. "If we'd done everything as we should have, we'd have
    won the war. Since we didn't win, we couldn't have done everything
    right." Traku settled down and ate his stew and bread and said not
    another word till they were gone. Even then, he talked about the com-
    ing of cooler weather and other innocuous things. Talsu concluded he'd
    won his point. He hadn't done that very often before going into the
    army.
     Next morning, after bread and sesame oil and a cup of beer almost as
    bad as he'd had in King Donalitu's service, he went out to see what sort
    of work he could find for the day. During the night, the Algarvians had
    slapped a new set of broadsheets up on walls and fences all over Skrunda.
    They bore Mainardo's beaky profile - very much like his brother
    Mezentio's - and the legend, A KING FOR THE COMMON
    PEOPLE.
     Seeing that slogan, Talsu slowly nodded. It wasn't the worst tack the
    redheads could have taken. Talsu knew how many commoners were dis-
    gusted with the Jelgavan nobility and the way the nobles, no doubt with
    Donalitu's approval, had governed the kingdom and botched the war.
     A couple of women walking toward him along the street glanced at
    one of the broadsheets. She turned to her friend and said, "That might
    not be so bad, if only he weren't a redhead."
     "Oh, aye, you're right," the other woman said. After casually passing
    judgment, they strode past Talsu, intent on their own affairs.
     He turned the comer, heading for the market square. A crowd of half
    a dozen or so had gathered in front of another broadsheet. A man a little
    older than Talsu's father who leaned on a cane said, "If we cursed King
    Donalitu, we'd wind up in his dungeons. Anybody think that, if we curse
    this new stinking whoreson the redheads have foisted on us, we won't
    wind up in an Algarvian dungeon?"
     Nobody told him he was crazy. A woman with a basket full of green
    and yellow squashes said, "I'll bet the Algarvians have even worse dun-
    geons than we do, too." Nobody argued with her, either. Like everyone

    




    512
    
    Harry Turtledove
    
    else who heard her, Talsu took it for granted that, however fierce Kin
    Donalitu's inquisitors were, those of the redheads would have no troubl
    outdoing them.
     In the market square, a fanner was unloading big yellow wheels o
    cheese. "Give you a hand with those?" Talsu called: the fellow was tak-
    ing them off a good-sized bullock cart.
     "I suppose you'll want one for yourself if I say aye," the farmer
    answered, pausing with hands on hips.
     "Either that or the price of one in coin," Talsu said. "Fair's fair. I'm
    not trying to steal from you, friend; I'm trying to work for you."
     "You're a townman. What do you know about work?" The farmer
    tossed his head so that the flat leather cap he wore almost flew off. But
    then he shrugged. "You want to show me what you know about, come
    do it."
     "I thank you," Talsu said, and sprang into action. He got the cheeses
    down from the wagon, stacked them on the burlap mat the farmer had
    already spread on the cobbles, and set a few of the best ones stan&~,,
    upright so customers could see how fine they were. That done, he told
    the fanner, "You ought to have a sign you could fasten to the side of the
    cart there, so people could see it all the way across the square."
     "A sign?" The farmer shook his head now. "Don't much f
                        1                ancy su
    newfangled notions." But then he rubbed his chin. "It might draw folks,
    though, eh?"
     "Like a bowl of honey draws flies," Talsu said solemnly.
    
     "Maybe," the farmer said at last - no small concession from a mail
    his sort. "Well, pick yourself a cheese, townman. You earned it,
    ay." He dug in his pocket. "And here you are." He handed Talsu as ~cr
    coin: a jelgavan minting, not one with Mezentio's face on it. "That For
    your idea. Fair's fair, like you said."
     "I thank you," Talsu said again, an tucked it away. He kne
    which cheese he wanted, too - a fine round one, golden as the full inooti
    rising. He carried it back to his family's home.
     When he returned to the market square, he discovered half a dozen
    Algarvian soldiers making off with a large part of the fanner's stock in trade.
    They were laughing and chattering in their own language as they, haUled
                                          4
    away the cheeses. The farimer could only stand and stare, furious but hclp-
    less. "Shanie! " som ebody called, but no one said or did anything more.

    




    lp-
    
    INTo THE DARKNESS
    
    513
    
     Several copies of the broadsheet with King Mainardo's profile on it
    looked out over the square. Maybe the Algarvian-imposed king was for
    the common people, as the broadsheets claimed. The Algarvian soldiers
    looked to be out for themselves and themselves alone. Somehow, Talsu
    
    was not surprised.
    
     Putting a crook in Skarnu's hands no more made him a shepherd than
    putting a hoe in his hands had made him a proper cultivator. Gedominu's
    sheep seemed to sense his inexperience, too. They strayed much more for
    him than they did for the farmer. So he was convinced, at any rate.
     "Come back, curse you!" he growled at a yearling. When the yearling
    didn't come back, he trotted after it and got the crook around its neck. It
    bleated irately when brought up short. He didn't care. He wanted it back
    with the rest of the small flock, and he got what he wanted.
     A couple of Algarvians rode unicorns down the road along the edge of
    the meadow. One of them waved to Skarnu. He lifted the crook in reply.
    The redheads kept on riding. They took Raunu and him for granted
    these days. The two Valmieran soldiers - two farm laborers, they were
    now - had been working for Gedominu as long as the redheads had occu-
    pled this district. No one, yet, had bothered letting the Algarvians know
    Skamu and Raunu were as much newcomers as they were themselves.
    With luck, no one would.
     Gedominu came limping out towards Skarnu. He glanced at the flock.
    "Well, you've not lost any of 'em, " he said. "That's pretty fair."
     "Aye, could be worse," Skarnu said, and the farmer nodded. Skarmi
    did his best, these days, to talk in understatements, to make himself fit in
    with the people among whom he was living. That did even more to
    make him seem to belong than imitating their rustic accent. When he'd
    first tried that, he'd laid it on too thick, so that he'd sounded more like a
    performer in a bad show than a true man of the countryside. As with
    spies, a little of the local dialect served better than a lot would have done.
     "Come have a bite of supper," Gedominu said: understatement again.
    qhen we'll look for some more fun." That was also an understatement,
    of a slightly different sort.
     Together, Skarmi and Gedominu chivvied the sheep back toward the
    pen where they would spend the night. Gedoiminu accomplished more
    without a crook than Skarnu with one. But neither had much trouble,

    




    514
    
    Hany Turtledove
    
    for the animals went willingly enough. They knew grain would be wait-
    ing for them, to supplement what nourishment they got from the dwin-
    dling grass of the meadows.
     Up on the barn roof, Raunu was hammering new shingles into places;
    rain a few days before had revealed some leaks. With carpenter's tools in
    his hands, the veteran sergeant looked far more at home than he did when
    he had to try to deal with crops or livestock.
     "Come down," Gedominu called to him as Skarnu closed the gate to
    the pen after getting the last ewe inside. "Come down and eat a bite, and
    then we'll go play." He chuckled under his breath. "And we'll see how
    the redheads like the game."
     "Not much, I hope," Raunu said as he descended from the roof He
    took the hammer and nails into the barn. When he came out, he nodded 'i
    to the farmer and to Skarnu. "I could eat a little something, I suppose."
    He hadn't needed long to master the art of understatement, either,
    though it was one for which a sergeant normally found but little use'
     Inside the farmhouse, Merkela nodded to her husband and to Skamu
    and Raunu. "Sit yourselves down," she said. "Won't be but a little bit."
     Gedominu paused briefly to kiss her as he headed for the table. Skarnu
    looked away. He was jealous of the farmer, and did not want Gedomiml
    to know it. Once, getting up from his bed of straw in the barn, he'd gone
    outside to make waterjust as a cry ofdelight from Merkela came floating
    out of the upstairs bedroom she shared with her husband. So fiercely had
    Skarnu wished he'd been the one to make her cry out that way he'd sl
    very little all the rest of the night.
     Every once in a while, out of the corner of his eye, he caught her
    watching him, too. He hadn't done anything about it; that would hive
    been a poor return for Gedominu, who could have handed him over to
    King Mezentio's soldiers and hadn't. But he could not - or maybe he
    simply didn't want to - get her out of his mind.
     She brought in a tray from the kitchen. On it sat four wooden bo
    of stew: beans and peas and onions and cabbage, simmered along w1it"
    chunks of pork sausage she'd made herself Farm work turned a man
    ravenous. Suppers like this one fought hunger the way fresh shingles on,:
    the roof fought rain.
     Darkness fell early, and fell hard. Merkela got a twig burning at the
    fireplace and used it to light a couple of oil lamps. No power points, no

    




    er,
    
    one
    
    her
    
    have
    er to
    e he
    
    owls
    with
    
    man
    
    es on
    
    at the
    
    ts, no
    
    INTo THE DARKNESS,
    
    515
    
    ley lines close to the farm: no sorcerous light to hold night at bay. Farmers
    in the days of the Kaunian Empire had lit their homes like this. Skamu
    had been used to better; Krasta, no doubt, still was. By now, he took
    lamps for granted.
     After spooning up the last of his stew, Gedominu said, "Night's our
    time. Shall we be about it?"
     "We'd better," Skarnu said. "If we don't, we aren't fighting the
    Algarvians, just knuckling under to them."
     "Aye," Gedominu. said. "They'd have been smarter if they hadn't
    popped Count Enkuru's son into his slot, for the brat's a nasty piece of
    work in his own right."
     "Better for us this way," Raunu said. "If they'd put in somebody
    decent, fewer people would want to go on fighting them."
     Gedominu nodded. "That's so, I reckon. But not a whole lot of folks
    in these parts love the redheads. Not like that in some of the bigger
    towns, the way the news sheets go on."
     "And who says what goes into the news sheets?" Skarmi asked, though
    what Gedominu had said worried him, too. As if to force that worry
    behind him, he turned and started for the door.
     "Come back safe, all of you," Merkela said. Skamu hurried out into
    the night. To him, her voice was as sweet and intoxicating as a jelgavan
    fortified wine. If he thought about what he was going to be doing out in
    the woods, he wouldn't think - so much - about what he wished he were
    doing up in her bedchamber.
     He and Raunu and Gedominu got their sticks out from under the
    straw in the barn. The farmer looped a long coil of rope over his left
    shoulder and passed other coils to his comrades. "Let's go have ourselves
    some fun," he said, and chuckled. "Don't suppose the Algarvians will like
    it so well, though.
      "Pox take 'em," Raunu said, at which Skarnu and Gedominu nodded.
     Once they got off Gedominu's farm, the three men separated. Because
    he'd dwelt in these parts since the collapse of the Valmieran army, Skarnu
    had come to know the paths for several miles around the farm.
    Gedominu still knew them better, of course; to him, they were as -
    iar as the way upstairs in his own home. They weren't to Skarriu, and
    never would be. But he could make his way along them without the
    farmer, even in the darkness.

    




    516
    
    Harry Turtledove
    
     As he knew Gedominu and Raunu were doing, he made for the
    woods. Despite the stick he carried, he felt more like hunted than hunter.
    If an Algarvian patrol caught sight of him, he intended to run first and
    fight only if he had to. That wasn't heroic, but he hadn't come out here
    to be a hero. He'd come to be a nuisance, a role with a different set of
    requirements.
     When he found a couple of trees near the edge of the path, he nodded
    to himself He tied one end of the rope to the trunk of one tree, then ran
    it across the road to the other. He tied it to that one, too, cut off the
    length of rope, and went on his way looking for another spot to set a trip-,
    line.
     If he was lucky, an Algarvian horse or unicorn would break a leg and
    have to be put out of its misery. If he was luckier, an Algarvian might
    break his leg or, if Skarmi was luckier still, his neck. At best, it would be
    a pinprick against King Mezentio's forces. If harassing the redheads was
    the best Skarnu could do right now, though, he would content himself
    with the knowledge that it was his best.
     He chose where to place his trip lines with several different kinds of
    care. As many as possible went on land belonging to farmers ftiendl~,
    toward the Algarvians. If he got those farmers into trouble with the occu-
    piers, so much the better: they wouldn't stay friendly toward them for
    long. And if the Algarvians blamed men who really were well inclined
    toward them, they wouldn't look so hard for people who weren't.
    
    and finally vanished.
    
     After Skarnu used the last of the rope, he made his way back towl
    Gedominu's farm. He was surprised at how confidently he moved in the
    dark. Once, not too far away, he heard some Algarvians on horseback.
    He slid off the path and into the bushes. The Algarvians hadn't heard hiiii.
    On routine patrol, they chattered among themselves. Their noise fadcd
                                             ~41
     A lamp was still burning downstairs when Skarim got back to the fam
    He glanced that way, sighed, and opened the barn door so he could roll
    himself in his blanket there. He must have made some noise, for the door
    to the farmhouse opened, too. Merkela stood silhouetted against the light
    
    within. Softly, she called, "Who is it?"
     "Me," Skarnu answered, just loud enough to let her recognize lE e.
    
     "You are the first one back," she said. "Come inside and drink a cup
    of hot spiced ale, if you care to."

    




    INTo THE DARKNESS
    
    517
    
     "I thank you," he said, and had all he could do not to run to her side.
    When she gave him the ale, he held the big mug in b6th hands, warm-
    ing them against the earthenware. He sat at the table where he'd eaten
    supper, sipping slowly. The ale was good. Watching Merkela was better.
    He didn't say anything. Had he said anything, the first words out of his
    mouth would have been too much.
     In the dim light, her eyes were enormous. She kept watching him,
    too, and not saying anything. At last, she took a deep breath. "I think-
    ,, she began. The door opened. In came Gedominu, Raunu only a couple
    of paces behind him. "I think," Merkela went on smoothly, "I will pour
    some more ale." Whatever else she might have thought, she kept to
    herself Likely just as well, Skamu thought, and wished he could make
    himself believe it.
     A few days later, two squads of Algarvian soldiers tramped up to the
                  1    1     1        1      'd.
    farm at first light. In fair Valmieran, the lieutenant leading them sal
    "We want the peasant Gedominu." He read the name from a list.
     "I am Gedominu," the farmer said quietly. "Why do you want me?"
     "As hostage," the lieutenant answered. "A warrior of King Mezentio's
    was killed by a trip line. We take ten for one, to keep this foolishness from
    happening more. You come." His soldiers leveled their sticks at
    Gedominu. "If the one who did this does not yield, we kill you."
     Skarnu stepped forward. "Take me instead." The words came out of
    his mouth before he quite knew they would.
     "You are brave," the Algarvian lieutenant said, and surprised him by
    sweeping off his hat and bowing from the waist. "But his name is on my
    paper. Your name is not. And so we take him. You and your wife" - his
    eyes lingered on Merkela, as any man's might have; he did not know the
    mistake he was making - "can keep this farm going without two old men
    here. One will do." He waved toward Raunu to show which old man he
    meant, then spoke to his men in their own language.
     A couple of them seized Gedominu and hustled him away. The rest
    kept Skamu and Raunu and Merkela so well covered that any try at res-
    cuing the farmer would have been suicide. Off the redheads went,
    Gedominu limping along in their midst. Skarnu stared helplessly after
    them. They had the night man and didn't even know it. They didn't care,
    either. They would have been just as happy to blaze him had he been the
    wrong man.

    




    518
    
    Harry Turtledove
    
     Count Sabrino had never imagined he could enjoy victory so much
    After Valmiera was vanquished, afterjelgava yielded, he'd b~en orderec
    back to Trapani. All the civilians there were sure the results of the Six
    Years' War had been overthrown forever, and that peace would soon be
    at hand.
     "How can Lagoas go on fighting us?" If Sabrino heard that once, he
    heard it a hundred times. "Derlaval is ours."
    
     Lagoan dragons still dropped eggs on southern Valmiera and Algarve.
    Lagoan warships still raided the coasts of Valmiera and Jelgava. It was still
    war, but it was war by fleabites. And Algarve could inflict no more than
    fleabites on Lagoas, either. Sabrinc, knew that, whether civilians did or
    not. He never tried to change their minds. Much of what he knew, he
    could not speak about. Even if he could have, he wouldn't. Pretty
    women were much likelier to throw themselves at the feet of a man who
    had conquered than one in the process of conquering.
     One of the things Sabnino knew was that crushing the Kaunian king-
    doms did not mean Derlaval belonged to Algarve. He could read a map.,
    So could a great many civilians, of course. But he did it habitually, as part.
    of his duties. More and more these days, he found himself looking west.
     Invitations to the royal palace frequently came his way. He would have
    been insulted had it been otherwise. Not only was he a noble, he was alsQ
    an officer who had distinguished himself in three of Algarve's four fi
    
    thus far. And so he would don his fanciest uniform tunic and kilt, put on
    every glittering decoration and badge of rank to which he was entitled,
    and swagger off to dance and dnink and talk and display himself He sel-
    dom came home alone.
     He also went to the palace to listen to King Mezentio. Mezentio
    cinated him, as the king fascinated most Algarvians. Unlike the vast
    maj oni ty of his countrymen, who could at most occasionally hear
    when he spoke by way of the crystal, Sabnino got to speak with
    well as listen. He took as much advantage of that as he could.
     "It comes down to a matter of will," Mezentio declared one c
    evening. He waved a goblet of hot brandy punch to emphasize his polilt,
    "Algarve refused to admit herself defeated after the Six Years' War, and
    so, in the end, she was not defeated. She was split up, she was in part
    occupied, she was robbed - and she was forced to sign a treating declaring

    




    I   I                 INTo THE DARKNESS         519
    
    t
    
    all this was good, all this was as it should have been. But defeated? Never!
    Not in her heart! Not in your hearts, my friends." He gestured again, this
    time in scorn of anyone who could think otherwise.
     A marquis clapped his hands. A couple of young women dropped the
    king curtsies, hoping to make him notice them. He did notice them;
    Sabn'no watched his eyes. But his mind was elsewhere - still on what he
    had caused his kingdom to do, not on what he might be doing himself
     "What next, your Majesty?" Sabrino asked. "Now that we have come
    this far, what next?"
     He didn't know how much King Mezentio would say. He didn't
    know whether the king would say anything. One of Mezentio's advisers
    plucked at his sleeve. Mezentio shrugged the man off. Smiling at Sabrino,
    he replied, "When we commence, my lord count, the world will hold its
    breath and make no comment!"
     "What does he mean?" one of the young women murmured to the
    other. The second woman shrugged, a gesture worth watching. Sabrino
    watched it. So did King Mezentio. Their eyes met. They both snuiled.
     And then Mezentio's smile changed from the one any Algarvian man
    might give after watching a pretty girl to one of a different sort, one of
    complicity. He asked, "Are you answered, my lord count?"
     Sabrino bowed. "Your Majesty, I am answered." He knew enough to
    draw his own conclusions from the little more the king gave him. Around
    him, those who knew less looked puzzled. Some of them looked resent-
    fiil because Sabriino plainly could see things they could not.
     "What did he mean?" one of the young women asked the dragonflier.
     "I'm sorry, my sweet, but I can't tell you," he answered. She pouted.
    Sabn'no still said nothing. She was plainly unused to not getting her way.
    When she realized she wouldn't this time, she poked him in the nibs with
    an elbow as she flounced away. He laughed, which only made her strides
    longer and angnier.
     "You are a wicked man," Mezentio said.
     "I must be," Sabrino agreed dryly.
     "Oh, you are, never fear," Mezentio said with a chuckle. "A wicked,
    wicked man." Then the smile faded from his face like water flowing out
    of a copper tub. "But you are not so wicked as the Kaunians, who pro-
    voked this war in the first place and have now begun to pay the price for
    their arrogant folly."
    
    I

    




    520
    
    Harry Turtledove
    
     "Begun? I should say so, your Majesty," Sabrino exclaimed. "King
    Gaimbu doing whatever we tell him in Valmiera, King Donalitu fled and
    your own brother on the throne in Jelgava - oh, what a great wailing and
    gnashing of teeth that must cause the blonds. I don't know what higher
    price they could pay, as a matter of fact."
     "They have only begun." Mezentio's voice went flat and harsh, the
    voice of a king who would brook no contradiction. "For a thousand years
    - for more than a thousand years - they have sneered at us, laughed
    behind their hands at us, looked down their noses at us. I say that will
    never happen again. From this war forth, from this day forth, whenever
    Kaunians think of Algarvians, they shall think of us with fear and trem-
    bling in their hearts."
     He'd spoken louder and louder, until at the end he might almost have
    been addressing a crowd of thousands gathered in the Royal Square. Ali
    over the salon, other conversations fell silent. When Mezentio finished,
    people burst into applause. Sabrino clapped with everybody else. "We've
    owed the Kaunians for a long time," he said. "I'm glad we're paying theni
    back."
     "We have owed most of our neighbors for a long time, my lord
    count," King Mezentio said. "We shall pay them back, too." As Sabrillo
    had done from time to time, he turned and looked toward the west.
     "Can it be done, your Majesty?" Sabrino asked quietly.
     "If you doubt it, sit, I invite you to return to your estate and leave
    doing to those who have no doubts," Mezentio said, and Sabrino's
    burned. The king continued, "We have only to k
    whole rotten structure win come crashing down.
    
                                 ick in the door and
    
                                 11
    
     Sabrino stared. A couple of high-ranking officers had used those vcr\
    words not long after Forthweg fell. Then, Sabrino had had no way of
    knowing what they were talking about. Now, a good many rotten strLIC-
    tures already having come crashing down, he could see only one still
    standing. How long, he suddenly wondered, had Mezentio been prepar-
    
    ino, for the d when war would k-l- -t, ~ -'_~ rb. V . 11; A
    
    had declared war on Algarve, but Algarve was the kingdom that had 1,cci
    
    Sabrino raised his goblet high. "To his Majesty!" he exclaimed
    
     Everyone drank. Not to drink a toast to the king of Algarve \\-ou
    have been unthinkable. But Mezentio's hazel eyes glinted as he

    




    INTo THE DARKNESS
    
    521
    
    acknowledged the honor Sabrino and the salon full of notables had done
    him. He studied the dragonflier, then slowly nodded. Sabrino was con-
    vinced the king knew what he was thinking, and was telling him he was
    right. Asking any more would have been asking Mezentio to say too
    much. Mezentio might already have said too much, for those with ears
    to hear.
     Not everyone had such ears. Sabrino had already insulted one pretty
    girl close to the king by not explaining what she thought she had the right
    to know. The other young woman there did not ask him to enlighten
    her. Instead, she chose an official from the ministry of finance. The fel-
    low was plainly flattered to gain her attentions, but as plainly understood
    no more of what Mezentio had said and what he'd implied than she did.
     Laughing a little to himself, Sabrino slipped off toward a sideboard and
    took another glass of wine. The pleasure that filled him, though, had little
    to do with what he'd drunk and what he was drinking. As Mezentio had
    done, he looked west. Slowly, he nodded. Algarve had been a long time
    finding her place in the sun. All her neighbors had tried to hold her
    down, hold her back. Once the Derlavalan War came to a proper end,
    though, they wouldn't be able to do that any more.
     Never again, Sabrino thought, echoing Mezentio. He was old enough
    to remember the humiliation and the chaos that followed the loss of the
    Six Years' War. Never again, he thought once more. Victory was better.
    Whatever victory required, he wanted Algarve to do.
     You can't make war hayheartedly, he thought. As if that needed proving,
    Valmiera and jelgava had proved it to the hilt. And now, as King
    Mezentio had said, they were paying the price. Well, Algarve had paid.
    It was their turn.
     Someone not far away shouted angrily. Sabrino turned his head. A
    Yaninan in shoes with decorative pomporns, tights, and a puffy-sleeved
    tunic was waving his finger in an Algarvian's face. "You are wrong, I tell
    you!" the Yaninan said. "I tell you, I was up by the Raffali River myself
    last week, and the weather was sunny - warm and sunny."
     "You are nuistaken, sir," the Algarvian said. "It rained. It rained nearly
    every day - quite spoiled the horseback ride I had planned."
     "You call me a liar at your peril," the Yaninan said; his folk took slights
    even more seriously than Algarvians did.
      "I do not call you a liar," the redheaded noble replied with a yawn. "A

    




    522
    
    Harry Turtledove
    
    senile fool who cannot recall today what happened yesterday: that, most
    assuredly. But not a liar.
     With a screech, the Yaninan flung his drink in the Algarvian's face.
    Among Algarvians, their friends would have made arrangements for them
    to meet again. The Yaninan was too impatient to wait. He hit his foe in
    the belly, and then a glancing blow off the side of his head.
     The Algarvian grappled with him, pulled him down, and started pum-
    meling him. The Yaninan didn't like that so well, as his foe was about
    half again as big as he was. By the time Sabriino and the other men pulled
    the Algarvian off him, he was more than a little worse for wear.
     "YOU would be well advised to learn some manners," the Algarvian
    told him.
     "You would bc wc1l adviscd to
    to his fcct.
     "Shall I give you another lesson on why you would be well advised to
    learn manners?" the Algarvian asked, as politely as if he were offering
    another glass of brandy punch rather than another punch in the eye. The
    Yaninan did not lack spirit, but he didn't altogether lack sense, either,
    Instead of starting up the fight again, he took himself elsewhere.
     Sabn'no bowed to the Algarvian victor, saying, "Well done, sir.
    done."
     "You do me too much honor." His countryman returned the bow.
    "All these westerners - if you take a firm line with them, they are yours
    to command."
     "Aye." Sabriino laughed. "That is the way of it, sure enough."
    
    the Yaninan beaan as he climbe
    
     Marshal Rathar strolled through King Swemmel Square, which was
    said to be the largest paved-over open space in the world. He had no idea
    whether that was true, or whether everything associated with King
    Swernmel had to be the biggest or the most of whatever it was simply
    because of its association with the king. He wondered whether anyoue
    had actually measured all the great plazas of the world and compared-
    them one to another. Then he wondered why he worried his head about
    such unimportant things. It wasn't as if he had not important things about
    which to worry.
    
     A wind howling up from the south blew little flurries of snow into his
    face. He pulled his cloak more tightly around him, and tugged the lioOd

    




    INTo THE DARKNESS
    
    523
    
    down low on his forehead. The cloak was the rock-gray of Unkerianter
    army issue, but, unlike the long tunic beneath it, did not show his rank.
    Thus swaddled, he could have been anyone. He enjoyed his few minutes
    of anonymity. AN too soon, he would have to return to the palace, return
    to his work, return to the knowledge that King Swemmel might order
    him dragged off to the headsman at any time.
     Statues of past Unkerlanter kings, some in stone, some in bronze,
    marked the outer boundary of the square. One statue towered twice as
    tall as any of the others. Rathar did not need to glance at it to know it
    was made in King Swemmel's image. Swernmel's successor would no
    doubt knock it down. Maybe he would replace it with one to match the
    others in size. Maybe, having knocked it down, Swernmel's successor
    would not replace it at all.
     Under the shielding hood, Rathar shook his head. He might have
    been a man bedeviled by gnats, but no gnats could withstand Cottbus's
    winter weather. No, he knew what he was: a man bedeviled by his own
    thoughts. Those were harder to shake off than gnats, and more danger-
    ous, too.
     He sighed. "I had better get back to it," he muttered. If he buried him-
    self in work, he would not - he hoped he would not - have much time
    to think about King Swemmel the man even as he carried out the orders
    of King Swernmel the sovereign.
     He turned back toward the palace. As he did so, a couple of other men
    in nondescript rock-gray cloaks who had also been walking through King
    Swernmel Square turned in the same direction. Not enough other people
    were abroad in the square to let them disguise their movements, try as
    they would.
     Rathar laughed. The wind tore apart the puff of vapor that burst from
    his mouth. He'd been a fool to imagine he could stay anonymous even
    for a few minutes.
     Inside the palace, he took off the cloak at once, draping it over his arm.
    As if to make up for the savage weather outside, Unkerlanters commonly
    heated their dwellings and workplaces beyond the comfortable.
     Major Merovec saluted him when he came into the office. "My lord
    Marshal, a gentleman from the foreign ministry has been waiting to see
     y" his ad                 1
     ou, I jutant said. As usual, Merovec's voice and face revealed little.
      "And what does he want?" Rathar asked.

    




    *
    
    524
    
    Harry Turtledove
    
     "Sir, he says he will discuss that only with you." Merovec wasn't shy
    about letting the marshal know what he thought of that: it infuriated him.
     "Then I'd better see him, hadn't IF' Rathar said mildly.
     "I will get him, sir," Merovec said. "I did not wish to leave him alone
    in your private office." He'd probably found a broom closet for the
    foreign ministry official instead, if the gleam in his eye was any sign. That
    gleam still there, he humied away.
     When he returned, sure enough, he had an angry official with him.
    "Marshal, this man of yours has not granted me the deference due the
    deputy foreign minister of Unkerlant," the fellow snapped.
     "My lord Ibert, I am sure he only sought to keep secrets from spread-
    ing," Rathar replied. "My aides can sometimes be more zealous on my
    behalf than I would be were I here in person."
    
     lbert kept on glaring at Merovec, who might have been carved from
    stone. The deputy foreign minister muttered under his breath, but thell
    said, "Very well, my lord Marshal, I will let it go - this time. Now that
    you are here in person, shall we closet ourselves together to keep secrets
    from spreading?" He kept an eye on Merovec: he wanted his own back.
     And Rathar could not refuse him. "As you wish, my lord," he said. "If
    you will do me the honor of accompanying me . . ." He led Ibert into
    his private office, closing the door behind them. The last he saw of the
    outside world was Merovec's face. He knew he would have to makc
    things right with his adjutant, but that could wait. He nodded to the
    deputy foreign minister. "And for what reason have we closeted ourselves
    towther 11CI-C.,
    
     lbert pointed to the map behind Rathar's desk. "My lord Marshal.
    when we go to war against Algarve come spring, are we prepared to,
    defend ourselves against a Zuwayzi attack from the north?"  "I
     Rathar turned to the map himself Pins with colored heads showcd
    concentrations of Unkerlanter soldiers and, somewhat less certainly, those
    of Algarve and Yanina. Almost all the gold-headed pins that represented
    Unkerlant's war-ready forces were near the kingdom's eastern border.
    The marshal clicked his tongue between his teeth. "Not so well as Nve
    might be, my lord," he answered. "If we are to beat the redheads, I ba\,c
    no doubt we shall need every man we can scrape up." He looked back to
    lbert. "You are telling me we should prepare for such a misfortune, aren I t
    you?"

    




    INTo THE DARKNESS
    
    525
    
     "I am," lbert said flatly. "Our spies and his Majesty's minister in Bishah
    report there can be no cloubt that Zuwayza and Algarve are conspiring
    against us."
     Sighing, Rathar tried to seem more surprised than he was. "That is too
    bad," he said, and marveled at how large an understatement he could
    pack into four short words. Another of King Swemmel's pigeons had
    come home to roost - and had shit on the windowsill as it flew in. Had
    Rathar been wearing King Shazli's shoes (all Shazli was in the habit of
    wearing), he would have thought about avenging himself on Unkerlant,
    too.
     "What do you propose to do about this?" Ibert demanded, sounding
    almost as petulant as his sovereign.
     However petulant he sounded, it was the night question. Rathar said,
    "Since you assure me we do need to ready ourselves to meet this danger, I
    shall consult with my officers and develop a plan to do so. My immediate
    response" - he glanced at the map again - "is not to worry a great deaL"
     "How not?" lbert said. "The Zuwayzin were a thom in our side
    during our last fight against them. Why should they prove any different
    now?"
     Patiently, Rathar answered, "During the last war, they fought on the
    defensive. The going is usually harder when one attacks. And, even if the
    black men should win some early successes - if you will pardon my blunt-
    ness, my lord, so what?"
     lbert's eyes almost bugged out of his head. "'So what,' my lord
    Marshal? Is that all you care for the soil of Unkerlant, that you would let
    the naked savages of the north seize it for their own?"
     "Seizing it is one thing," Rathar answered. "Keeping it is another.
    With the worst will in the world toward us, the Zuwayzin cannot go far
    beyond the borders they had before we forced them back a year ago.
    They have not the men, the behemoths, or the dragons to do more."
      "That would be quite bad enough," Ibert said.
     "Would it?" Rathar asked. "If we weaken the force with which we
    fight Algarve, we shall surely regret it, because it will mean we are less
    likely to beat the redheads. Once we have beaten the Algarvians, though,
    how can Zuwayza hope to stand alone against us?"
     He studied lbert. The man had held his post for some time, no mean
    achievement under King Swernmel. The easiest way to do so, though,
    
    1,

    




    526
    
    Harty Turtledove
    
    was to do nothing but rmirror the king's thoughts and desires. Rathar
    waited to discover whether the deputy foreign minister had any thoughts
    of his own.
     lbert licked his lips. "Suppose you take no troops from the Algarvians,
    and they and the Zuwayzin defeat us anyhow?"
     That was a very good question. Rathar wished Swemmel would ask
    such questions from time to time. So lbert did have wits of his own:
    something worth knowing. The marshal said, "If that should happen -
    which the powers above prevent - it will be the redheads who beat us,
    not the black men. I would not wish to move soldiers away from the
    stronger foe to ward myself against the weaker."
     "That strikes me as a reasonable reply, my lord Marshal," lbert said. "I
    shall bear your words to his Majesty."
     And if Swernmel threw a tantrum and ordered an all-out assault on
    Zuwayza instead of the attack on Algarve ... Rathar would obey him,
    and would obey him with a small sigh of relief He did not relish the
    prospect of assailing King Mezentio's men. He would have obeyed an
    order to attack Zuwayza with a large sigh of relief rather than a s mall one
    had he not begun to worry that the Algarvians were also contemplating
    an attack on Unkerlant.
     But when he mentioned that to lbert, the deputy foreign minister
    shook his head. "We've seen little evidence of it, aside from the
    attempted seduction of Zuwayza. Our ministries otherwise report
    unusually cordial relations with the redheads, in fact."
     "We are not the only ones moving soldiers toward our common
    border," Rathar insisted.
     "Neither the foreign ministry nor the king views these movements
    with alarm," Ibert said. "His Majesty is confident we shall enjoy the
    advantages of surprise when the blow falls in the east."
     "Very well," Rathar said, somewhat reassured. Swernmel saw con-
    spiracies all around him. If he did not think the Algarvians suspected any-
    thing here, then the chance that they truly did not seemed pretty good to
    the marshal of Unkerlant. Of course, Swernmel had made mistakes before
    - about Rathar himself, for instance - but the marshal chose not to dwell
    on those.
    
     Besides, Rathar told himself, then Swemmel was seeing danger where wit,
    
    existed. He wouldn't miss danger where it truly lurked ... would he?

    




    INTo THE DARKNESS
    
    527
    
     lbert said, "Submit to his Majesty a formal plan based on what you
    have discussed with me. I believe he will accept it."
     Rathar hoped the deputy foreign minister was right. King Swemmel,
    though, had an enormous attachment to Unkerlanter territory. Would he
    be willing to yield any, even temporarily, to gain more? The marshal had
    his doubts. He wished he were free of them, but he wasn't. Still, he could
    only say, "He will have it before the week is out." What he did with it .
    . . Whatever he did with it, the sooner he did it, the more time Rathar
    would have to try to set things to rights again.
     lbert departed, looking pleased with himself He looked even more
    pleased as he strutted past Merovec. Rathar's adjutant looked as if he
    wanted to see the deputy foreign minister shipped off to some distant vil-
    lage to keep a crystal going. As best he could, Rathar soothed Merovec's
    ruffled feathers. That was part of his Job, too.
    
     "Come on," Ealstan said to Sidroc. "New semester today. New mas-
    ters. Maybe we'll get some decent ones, for a change."
     "Fat chance," his cousin answered, as usual dawdling over his break-
    fast porridge. "Only difference will be new hands breaking switches on
    our backs."
     "All right, then," Ealstan said. "Maybe we'll have a bunch of old men
    who can't hit very hard."
     As he'd hoped it would, that made Sidroc smile, even if it didn't make
    him eat any faster. After a swig of watered wine, Sidroc said, "Curse me
    if I know why we bother with school, anyhow. Your brother had a ton
    of it, and what's he doing? Roadbuilding, that's what. You could train a
    mountain ape to put cobblestones in place."
     Leofsig had already gone off to labor on the roads. "He would be help-
    ing my father, if it weren't for the war," Ealstan said. "Things can't stay
    crazy forever." Even as he said that, though, he wondered why not.
     So did Sidroc. "Says who?" he replied, and Ealstan had no good
    answer. Sidroc got to his feet. "Well, come on. You're so eager, let's go."
     They both threw cloaks over their tunics. Snow didn't fall in
   Gromheort more than about one winter in four, but mornings were
    hilly anyhow. So Ealstan thought, at any rate; maybe someone from the
    South of Unkerlant would have had a different opinion.
     Ealstan was soon glad they had started out with time to spare, for they

    




    528
    
    Harry Turtledove
    
    had to wait at a street corner while a regiment of Algarvian footsoldiers
    tramped by heading west. They weren't men from Gromheort's garrison;
    they kept looking around and exclaiming at the buildings - and at the
    good-looking women - they saw. Ealstan found he could understand
    quite a bit of their chatter. Master Agmund had a heavy hand with the
    switch, but he'd made his scholars learn.
     At last, the redheads passed. Sidroc moved at a brisk clip after that. He
    didn't like getting beaten. The trouble was, most of the time he didn't
    like doing the things that kept him from getting beaten, either.
     "We're here in good time." Ealstan knew he sounded surprised, but
    couldn't help himself
     "Aye, we are," his cousin answered, "and what does it get us? Not a
    cursed thing but the chance to queue up for the registrar."
     He was right. A long line of boys already snaked out of the office.
    Ealstan said, "We'd be even farther back if we were later." Sidroc
    snorted. Ealstan's cheeks heated. It had been a weak comeback, and he
    knew it.
     Little by little, the line advanced. More boys took their places behi
    Ealstan and Sidroc. Ealstan liked that. It didn't change how many bo
    were in front of him, but he wasn't a tailender any more.
     As he got nearer to the registrar's office, he heard voices raised
    anger. "What's going on?" he asked the fellow in front of him.
     "I don't know," the youth said. "They're only letting in one at a tillic.
    and people aren't coming out this way." He shrugged. "We'll find ()L,lt
    pretty soon, I guess."
     "Something's going on." Sidroc spoke with authority. "This isn't ow
    they did things last semester, and that means they're up to something. 1
    wonder what." His nose quivered, as if he were one of
    nobles trained to hunt truffles and other extra-fancy
    
     Ealstan wouldn't have figured that out so quickly
    
    the dogs some ildi
    mushrooms.
    but saw at once 01a
    
    his cousin was likely to be right. Sidroc had a gift for spotting the under-
    handed. Ealstan preferred not to wonder what else that said about h11111
     "It's an outrage, I tell you," the youth in the registrar's office shouted.
    Ealstan leaned forward, trying to hear what kind of reply the scholar g
    
    Whatever it was, it was too soft for him to make out. He slamme a St
    into the side of his thigh in frustration.
    
    Before long, the fellow in front of him in the queue went inside. Now

    




    INTo THE DARKNESS
    
    i
    
    529
    
    Ealstan could hear whatever happened. But nothing happened. The
    scholar got his list of classes and didn't say a word about it. "Next!" the
    registrar called.
     Ealstan was in front of Sidroc, so he went in. The registrar looked up
    at him over a pair of half glasses. Having gone through this twice a year
    f(
    or a good many years, Ealstan knew what was expected of him. "Master,
    I am Ealstan son of Hestan," he said. He didn't think anyone at the school
    shared his name, but nitual required that he give his father's name, too,
    and sticking to nitual was as important in registration as in sorcery. The
    registrar thought so, anyhow, and his was the only opinion that counted.
     "Ealstan son of Hestan," he repeated, as if he'd never heard the name
    before. But his fingers belled that; they sorted through piles of paper with
    amazing speed and sureness. The registrar plucked out the couple of
    sheets that had to do with Ealstan. Glancing at one, he said, "Your fees
    were paid in full at the beginning of the year."
     "Aye, Master," Ealstan answered with quiet pride. In spite of every-
    thing, his father did better than most in Gromheort.
     "Here are your courses, then." The registrar thrust the other sheet of
    paper at Ealstan. Did he wince as he did so? For a moment, Ealstan
    thought he was imagining things. Then he remembered the shouts and
    arguments he'd heard. Maybe he wasn't.
     He looked at the list. The Algarvian language, history of Algarve,
    something called nature of Kaunianity . . . "What's this?" he asked, point-
    ing to it.
     "New requirement," the registrar said, which was less informative
    than Ealstan would have liked. By the set of the man's chin, though, it
    was all he intended to say on the subject.
     With a mental shrug, Ealstan glanced down the rest of the list:
    Forthwegian language and grammar, Forthwegian literature, and choral
    singing. "Where's the rest of it?" he asked. "Where's the stonelore?
    Where's the ciphering?"
     "Those courses are no longer being offered," the registrar said, and
    braced himself, as if for a blow.
     "What?" Ealstan stared. "Why not? What's the point of school, if not
    "to learn things?" He sounded very much like his father, though he didn't
    fillly realize it.
      By the look on the registrar's face, he didn't want to answer. But he

    




    530
    
    Harry Turtledove
    
    did, and in a way that relieved him of all responsibility: "Those courses
    are no longer offered, by order of the occupying authorities."
     "They can't do that!" Ealstan exclaimed.
     "They can. They have," the registrar said. "The headmaster has
    protested, but he can do no more than protest. And you, young sir, can
    do no more than go out that door yonder so I can deal with the next
    scholar in line."
     Ealstan could have done more. He could have pitched a fit, as several
    of his schoolmates had done before him. But he was too shocked.
    Numbly, he went out through the door at which the registrar hadjerked
    his thumb. He stood in the hallway, staring down at the class list in his
    hand. He wondered what his father would say on seeing it. Something
    colorful and memorable, he had no doubt.
     Sidroc came through the door less than a minute later. Smiles
    wreathed his face. "By the powers above, it's going to be a pretty good
    semester," he said. "Only hard course they've stuck me with is
    Algarvian."
     "Let's see your list," Ealstan said. His cousin handed him the paper.
    His eyes flicked down it. "It's the same as mine, all right."
     "Isn't it fine?" Sidroc looked about to dance forjoy. "For once in my
    life, I won't feel like my brains are trying to dribble out my ears when I
    do the work."
    
     "We should be taking the harder courses, though," Ealstar
                                        .i said. "You
    know why we're not, don't you?" Sidroc shook his head. Ealstan mut-
    tered something his cousin fortunately did not hear. Aloud, he went on,
    "We're not taking them because the redheads won't let us take then).
    that's why."
     "Huh?" S*droc scratched his head. "Why should the Algarvians c
    whether we take stonelore or not? I care, on account of I know how h
    it is, but what difference does it make to the Algarvians?"
     "Have I told you lately you're a blockhead?" Ealstan asked. Sidroc
    wasn't, not in all ways, but he'd missed the boat here. Before he coul~
    get angry, Ealstan went on, "They want us to be stupid. They want us to
    be ignorant. They want us not to know things. You don't see Forth-
    wegian history on th
    King Felgild, when
    can we want them to
    
     is list, do you? If we don't know about the days
    Forthweg was the greatest kingdom in Derlavai, hq\~,
     come back?"                '49

    




    ou
    
    ow
    
    INTo THE DARKNESS
    
    531
    
     "I don't care. I don't much care, either," Sidroc said. "All I know is,
    I'm not going to be measuring triangles this semester, either, and I'm
    cursed glad of it."
     "But don't you see?" Ealstan said, rather desperately. "If the Algarvians
    don't let us learn anything, by the time our children grow up
    Forthwegians won't be anything but peasants grubbing in the dirt."
     "I need to find a woman before I have children," Sidroc said. "As a
    matter of fact, I'd like to find a woman whether I have children or not."
    He glanced over at Ealstan. "And don't tell me you wouldn't. That blond
    wench in mushroom season-"
     "Oh, shut up," Ealstan said fiercely. He might not have sounded so
    fierce had he found Vanal unattractive. He had no idea what she thought
    of him, or even if she thought of him. All they'd talked about were mush-
    rooms and the Algarvians' multifarious iniquities.
     Sidroc laughed at him, which made things worse. Then his cousin said,
    "If you're going to cast books like Uncle Hestan, I can see why you
    might want more ciphering lessons, I suppose, but what do you care
    about stonelore any which way? It's not like you're going to be a mage."
     "My father always says the more you know, the more choices you
    have," Ealstan answered. "I'd say the Algarvians think he's right, would-
    n't you? Except with them, it's the other way round - they don't want
    us to have any choices, and so they don't want us to know anything,
    either. "
     "My father always says it's not what you know, it's who you know,"
    Sidroc said, which did indeed sound like Uncle Hengist. "As long as we
    can make connections, we'll get on all night."
     That had more than a little truth in it. Ealstan's father had used his con-
    nections to make sure no one looked too closely at where Leofsig had
    been before he came back to Gromheort. In the short run, and for
    relatively small things, connections were indeed splendid. For setting the
    course of one's entire life? Ealstan didn't think so.
     He started to say as much, then shook his head instead. He couldn't
    prove he was right. He wondered if he could even make a good case.
    Whether he did or not, Sidroc would laugh at him. He was sure of that.
     Even though Ealstan kept his mouth shut, Sidroc started laughing any-
    how, laughing and pointing at Ealstan. "What's so cursed funny?" Ealstan
    demanded.

    




    532
    
    Harry Turtledove
    
     "I'll tell you what's so cursed fianny," his cousin replied. "If you can't.
    get the courses your father thinks you ought to have here at school, what's
    he going to do? I'll tell you what: he'll make you study those things on your
    own. That's what's funny, by the powers above. Haw, haw, haw!"
     "Oh, shut up," Ealstan said again, suddenly and horribly certain Sidroc
    was right.

    




    r
    
    19.
    
    King Shazli beamed at Haijajj. "We shall have vengeance!" he exclaimed.
    "King Swernmel, may demons tear out his entrails and dance with them,
    will wall and gnash his teeth when he thinks of the day he sent his annies
    over the border into Zuwayza."
     "Even so, your Majesty," Hajaj replied, inclining his head to the
    young king. "But the Unkerlanters are suspicious of us; Swemmel, being
    a treacherous sort himself, sees treachery all around him. As I have
    reported to you, my conversations with the Algarvian minister have not
    unnoticed."
    gone
    
     By Shazli's expression, he started to make some flip comment in
    response to that. He checked himself, though, at which HajaJ nodded
    somber approval. Shazli could think, even if he remained too young to do
    it all the time. "Do you doubt the wisdom of our course, then?"
     I doubt the wisdom of all courses," the foreign rminister said. "I serve
    you best by doubting, and by admitting that I doubt."
     "Ali, but if you doubt everything, how can I know how much weight
    to place on any particular doubt?" Shazli asked with a smile.
     Ha~aj smiled, too. "There you have me, I must admit."
     "Explain your doubts here, then, your Excellency, if you would be so
    kind," Shazli said. "That we want, that we are entitled to, revenge on
    Unkerlant cannot be doubted. What better way to get it than by making
    common cause with Algarve? The Algarvians have proved willing - nay,
    eager - to make common cause with us."
     "Oh, indeed," Ha~aj said. "Count Balastro has been accommodating in
    every possible way. And why not? We serve his interests, as he serves ours."
     "Well, then!" Shazli said, for all the world as if HaJjaj had just com-
    pleted a geometric proof on the blackboard.
    
    i

    




    534
    
    Harry Turtledove
    
     But HajaJ knew all too well that kingdoms did not behave so neatly
    as circles and triangles and trapezoids. "Algarve is a great kingdom," he
    said, "but Unkerlant is also a great kingdom. Zuwayza is not a great king-
    dom, nor shall it ever be. If the small involve themselves in the quarrels
    of the great, they may be sorry afterwards."
     "We are already sorry. Unkerlant has made us sorry," Shazli said. "Do
    you deny this? Can you deny it?"
     "I do not. I cannot," HajaJ said. "Indeed, I was glad to begin conver-
    sations with the Algarvians, as your Majesty surely knows."
     "Well, then," Shazli said again. This time, he amplified it: "How can
    we go wrong here, Hajjaj? Algarve does not border us. She can make no
    demands upon us, as Unkerlant can and does. All she can do is help us get
    our own back, and get our own back we shall."
     "She will be able to make demands afterwards, for we shall owe her a
    debt," HaJjaJ* replied. "She will remember. Great kingdoms always do."
     "Here, I think, you start at shadows," the king said. "Perhaps she can
    make demands. How can she enforce them?"
    
     "How many dragons did Algarve hurl against Valmiera?" HajaJas
    "How many againstjelgava? They could fly against us, too. How do you
    propose to stand against them, your Majesty, come the evil day?"
     "if you would have us withdraw from the alliance we have made, sav
    so now and say so plainly. " Shazli spoke with a hint of anger in his voice.
     "I would not," HajaJ said with a sigh. "But neither am I certain all will
    go as well as we hope. I have lived a long time. I have seen that things
    rarely go as well as people hope they will."      A
     "We shall take back the land Swemmel stole from us," Shazli said.
    "Perhaps we shall even take more besides. Past that, I am willing to let
    the future fend for itself"
    
     Shazli leaned forward, staring at him in surprise. "How can we fall?
    The only way I can imagine our failing would be for Unkerlant to defeat
    Algarve. How likely do you suppose that to be?" He threw back his head
    
     It was a good answer. It was, at the same time, a young man, s answer.
    HaJjaJ, who would probably see far less of the future unfold than wonld
    his sovereign, worried about it far more. "Indeed, I think we shall take
    it," he said. "I only hope we shall keep it."
    
    and laughed, which gave HajJaJ his view on the subject.
    
     "Not very likely, else I would have warned you not to follow this

    




    W_
    
    INTo THE DARKNESS '
    
    535
    
    course "I the Zuwayzi foreign minister said. "But how likely would we
    have reckoned it that Algarve could overthrow Valmiera and jelgava in
    bare weeks apiece?"
     I'm the more reason to think the redheads will give King Swernmel
    the thrashing he deserves," Shazli said, not quite taking Hajaj*'s point.
    "Efficiency!" His lip curled. "Not in Unkerlant. Will you tell me other-
    wise?" He looked a challenge at Hajjaj.
     "I will not. I cannot," Hajaj said. Shazli nodded, an I-told-you-so
    look in his eye. Then he nodded again, in a different way. Hajaj rose,
    knowing he had been dismissed. "We have only to wait for spring, to see
    what comes then. May it prove good for the kingdom, as I hope with all
    my heart it does."
     When he got back to his own office, he found his secretary arguing
    with a fellow who wore several amulets and lockets that clanked together
    whenever he moved. "No," Shaddad was saying when Hajjaj walked in,
    11 that is not acceptable. His Excellency would-" He turned. "Oh. Here
    you are, your Excellency. Powers above be praised! This bungler pro-
    poses to undertake sorcery in and around your office."
     "I am not a bungler, or I hope I am not." The fellow with the amulets
    bowed, which produced more clinkings and clankings. "I am Mithqal, a
    second-rank mage, with the honor of serving in his Majesty's army. My
    orders, which your secretary now has, request and require me to do my best
    to learn whether any other mages have been sorcerously spying on you."
     "Let me see these orders," Hajjaj' said, and put on his spectacles to read
    them. When he was through, he looked over the tops of the spectacles at
    Shaddad. "Captain Mithqal appears to be within his rights."
     "Bah!" his secretary said. "For all we know, he just wants to snoop
    about. Why, for all we know, he could be "
    , "Do not say something you may regret." Hajjaj' did not like to bring
    Shaddad up so sharply, but his secretary sometimes got an exaggerated
    notion of his own importance. And having a mage, especially a mage
    who was also a soldier, angry at Shaddad would not do the secretary any
    good. Hajaj* went on, "Use the crystal to consult with this man's
    superiors. If they have indeed sent him here, well and good. If not, then
    by all means raise the alarm."
      "I tried to suggest this very course to him, but he would not hear me,'
    Mithqal said.
    
    is

    




    536
    
    Harry Turtledove
    
     Shaddad sniffed. "As if I should take seriously any mountebank who
    sets himself before me." He bowed to HajaJJ. "Very well, yotTr
    Excellency. Since you require it of me-" He turned his back on Mithqal
    to use the crystal, bending low over it to speak in a quiet voice. After a
    moment, his shoulders slumped further. When he turned around again,
    he looked as embarrassed as Hajaj had ever seen him. "My apologies,
    Captain Mithqal. I seem to have been mistaken."
     "May I now proceed?" Mithqal asked, a sardonic edge to his voice. FTc
    was looking at Hajaj, who nodded. Shadclad nodded, too, which the
    mage affected not to notice. HaijaJ bit the inside of his lip to keep from,
    smi ing
     Shaddad sidled up to the Zuwayzi foreign minister. "I must confess, I
    am mortified," he murmured.
     "We are all foolish now and then," HaJaJ said. What he was thinking
    was, Well you might be, but that would only have flustered Shaddad
                                             "M
    further.                                 A
     Mithqal said, "Your Excellency" - he kept right on ignoring Shaddai6
    - "I aim to check two things: first, to learn whether anyone is spying 4
    your office from a distance; and second, to learn whether anything has
    been secreted hereabouts to send word or your doings to whoever may
    be listening: a clandestine crystal, perhaps, though that is not the only way
    to achieve the effect."
     "No one could have placed such a thing here," Shaddad said. "Had
    someone brought such an object during a meeting with his Excellency,
    it would have been noted, and we do have sorcerous wards in place to
    keep out unwelcome guests when his Excellency and I are not present. '!
    
     "What one mage can do, another can undo," Mithqal said. "That is as
    basic a law of sorcery as those of similanity and contagion, though f o\vn
    that many mages are loth to admit as much."
     He took from the large pouch he wore on his belt a candle of black
    beeswax, which he set on Shadclad's desk, and used ordinary flint aud
    steel to light it. The glow that came from it, though, was anything but
    ordinary. HajjaJJ rubbed at his eyes. Not only could he see Shaddad and
    Mithqal, but also, in an odd sort of way, into them and through them.,
    well. He could also see into and through Shaddad's desk.
     Mithqal took out a six-sided crystal. "The iris stone," he said, and hel
    it up. Rainbows appeared on all the walls of the office. "Thus you note its

    




    ELI
    
    INTo THE DARKNESS
    
    537
    
    chiefest property." He might have been delivering a lecture. "Should the
    rainbows be agitated, that will show the influence of some other magic."
     He carried the iris stone all around the desk. The rainbows shifted and
    swirled, but he accepted that, so Ha~aj supposed he was seeking some
    larger derangement. And, sure enough, Mithqal put down the crystal
    with every sign of satisfaction. He blew out the candle, carried it into
    Hajaj's chambers, and lighted it again, repeating the ritual he had used in
    the outer office.
     Once more, the rainbows swirled on the walls as Mithqal carried the
    ins stone around the candle. Once more, that was the only thing that
    happened. The mage nodded to HajaJ, "Your Excellency, as best I can
    tell, no one is spying on you from without."
     I am glad to hear it," Ha~aj said.
     I could have told you as much, your Excellency," Shaddad said.
    Hajaj glanced at him. He coughed a couple of times. "Er - not with such
    certainty, perhaps."
     "Indeed," MithqaI said, and mercifully let it go at that. "Now to see if
    anyone has been listening from within." He drew a couple of withered
    objects from his pouch, one small and looking rather like a bean, the
    other resembling a thick, curled brown leaf, but hairy on one side. I
    have the heart of a weasel, with which to seek out treachery, and also the
    ear of an ass, to signify treachery in respect to hearing." As an aside, he
    remarked, "Perhaps I might have done without the latter." Shaddad suf-
    fered another coughing fit.
     Holding the heart in one hand and the ass' ear in the other, Mithqal
    began to chant. The ear started writhing and twitching, as it would have
    done were it attached to a living animal. Shaddad jumped; he might
    never have seen magecraft: before. Hajaj watched in the fascination he
    gave any workman manifestly good at his craft. "Something?" he asked
    in a low voice, so as not to disturb the mage.
     "Something, aye," Mithqal breathed. He stalked out to the outer
    office, in the direction toward which the ear pointed. Hajaj followed. So
    did Shaddad, his eyes round and white and staning in his dark face.
    Guided by the ass' ear, Mithqal moved toward the secretary's desk.
     Shaddad cn'ed out in despair and fled.
    
    ~~ Mi qal threw down his sorcerous implements and pursued. He was
    younger and lighter on his feet than Ha~aj's secretary. After a moment,

    




    538
    
    Harry Turtledove
    
    Hajaj heard more shouts, and then a thud. He sank to a cushion and
    buried his face in his hands. He had trusted Shaddad, and here was his
    trust repaid with treason. But anguish was only half of what he felt. The
    other half was fear. How long had Shaddad been suborned, and how
    much had he passed to Unkerlant?
     The secretary cnied out once more, this time in pain. Haijaj winced.
    Those questions would have answers, and soon. Shaddad would not like
    giving them. That no longer mattered. He would give them whether he
    liked to or not.
    
     "What one mage can do, another can undo." Pekka quoted the adage
    loud. She preferred talking to herself to listening to the icy winds from
    the south howling around her Kajaam City College office. The only
    trouble was, she was lying to herself Her laugh came bitter. "What one
    mage can do, even the same mage can't undo - or figure out how she did
    it in the first place."
     Her only consolation was that she wasn't the only baffled theoretical
    sorcerer in Kuusamo. Raahe and Alkio hadn't been able to discover
    where the rmissing acorn from the pair in her experiment had
    Neither had Piilis. Neither had Master Siuntio, and neither had
                                            t, ei
    Ilmarinen, so far as she knew, though he was worse than any of her 0 h
    colleagues at telling everyone what he was up to.
     Pekka looked at her latest stab at an explanation. It wasn't going an~-
    where. She could feel it wouldn't go anywhere, and had to fight back dic
    strong impulse to crumple up the sheet of paper and throw it away. She'd
    tried explanations based on the assumption that the laws of similarity
    contagion had a direct relationship. They'd failed. She'd also tried e
    nations based on the assumption that the laws of similarity and contagion
    had no direct relationship. They'd failed, too.
    
     That left . . . "Nothing," Pekka said. "Nothing, curse it, noth
    nothing, nothing."
     Again, she resisted the urge to tear up her latest set of calculations.,
    wished she'd never got involved in theoretical sorcery in the first plicc.
    Her husband, a practical man if ever there was one, kept making progrcs~
    in useful applications of magecraft that strengthened Kutisamo andil
    delighted the Seven Princes.            M
     I didn't want to be practical," Pekka muttered. "I wanted to get

    




    INTo THE DARKNESS
    
    539
    
    down to the bottom of things and understand them, so that other people
    could be practical with them. And what happened? I've gotten down to
    the bottom of things, I don't understand them, and other people are
    doingjust fine being practical without them."
     Temptation, twice resisted, came back stronger than ever and won.
    She made a very small ball of her latest set of calculations and threw the
    ball toward the wastepaper basket. She missed. Shrugging, she got up and
    went over to retrieve the wadded-up sheets. She'd rmissed with the cal-
    culations. She supposed it made sense that she should miss in getting rid
    of them, too.
     She'djust dropped the ball of paper into the wire basket - it had plenty
    of company there - when someone knocked on the door. She frowned.
    It was early for Leino to have finished his latest round of experiments. Of
    course he works late, Pekka thought. His work is actually getting somewhere.
    And that had to be the most peculiar knock she'd ever heard. It sounded
    more as if someone had kicked the door, but much too high up to make
    that likely, either.
     Frowning still, she pulled the door open - and jumped back in alarm.
    Of all the things she'd expected to see in the hallway, a man standing on
    his head was the last. "Powers above!" she burst out, all the while think-
    ing, Well, that explains how he knocked on the door.
     "And a fine good day to you, Mistress Pekka," the man said with a gnin
    his being upside down tried to transmogrify into a frown.
     Only then did Pekka realize she knew him. "Master Ilmarinen!" she
    exclaimed. "What are you doing there?"
     "Waiting for you to open the door," the elderly theoretical sorcerer
    replied. "Wondering if I was going to fall over before you did open the
    door." With a spryness that gave that the lie, he went from upside down
    to right side up. His face, which had been quite red, resumed its natural
    color.
     "Master Ilmarinen Pekka repeated his name with such patience
    as she could muster. "Let me ask a different question, Master: why were
    you standing on your head while you waited for me to open the door?"
     "You are a true theoretical sorcerer, Mistress Pekka," Ilmarmen said,
    bowing. "No sooner do you observe an unexplained phenomenon than
    you seek the root cause behind it. Most commendable indeed."
     That kind of mocking praise infuriated Pekka as nothing else could

    




    540
    
    Harty Turtledove
    
    have done. "Master," she said tightly, "shall we see if the constabu
    reckons your untimely demise an unexplained phenomenon? If
    don't start talking sense, we can experimentally test the notion v
    soon.
    
     Ili-naninen laughed, breathing spirit fumes into her face. She glare
    him, really tempted to perform that experiment. Powers above, had he
    drunk, hopped aboard a ley-line caravan coach, and traveled dow
    Kajaani in the middle of a Kuusaman winter for no better reason tha
    drive her mad? For anyone but Ilmarinen, the notion would have b
    absurd. Even for him, it should have been. The large rational part of
    mind still insisted it was. But her large rational part also recognized
    Ilmarinen's rational part wasn't anywhere near so large.
    
     He kept on laughing for another couple of heartbeats. Pekka loo
    around for the blunt instrument nearest to hand. Maybe murder,
    something like it, did show in her eyes, for Ilmarinen went from laug
    chuckle to a smi'le that only set her teeth on edge. Then he reached 1
    a pocket. When he didn't find what he wanted, the smile fell off his fa
    too. He started going through his other pockets, and growing more
    more frantic as whatever he was after remained elusive. Now Pe
    laughed, in sardonic delight.
     Ilman*nen looked harlied. "However much it may amuse y
    Mistress, it is not funny, I assure you."
     "Oh, I don't know. It seems funny enough to me." Pekka pointed
    a folded-up piece of paper behind the heel of Ilmarinen's left boot.
    that by any chance what you seek?"
     He turned, stared, and scooped it up. "Aye, it is," he answered, mo
    sheepishly than she was used to hearing him speak. "It must have
    out while I was standing on my head."
     "You still have not explained why you were standing on your head
    Pekka reminded him.
    
     And Ilmarinen went right on not explaining, at least with
    Instead, with a flourish, he presented Pekka the paper, as a somm~lier
    a fancy eatery up in Yliharma might have proffered an expensive bottl
    of Algarvian wine.
     "You were standing on your head because of this piece of paper,'!
    said in the now-tell-me-another-one tones she used after listening to Ut
    spin out some outrageous fabrication. Sure as sure, her son and Ilmanne

    




     But Ilmarinen, this time, seemed immune. "As a matter of fac ,
    Mistress Pekka, I truly was standing on my head because of that piece
    
     Pekka studied him He was serious He sounded serious. That onl)
    made her distrust him more than ever. But, after so much farce, wha
    choice had she but to unfold the sheet and see what was on it? Only late
    did she wonder what Ilmaninen's expression would have been had sht
    torn it up and thrown it in his face. There, in a nutshell - not an acorn -
    was the difference between the two of them. Ilman*nen would have hac
    
     Once opened, the sheet wasn't blank, as she'd half expected it to be
    Calculations in Ilmarinen's sprawling script filled it She glanced down a
    them for a moment. She started to look up at Ilmarinen again, but her
    eyes, of themselves, snapped back to the arcane symbols Her mouth fen
    open. She held the paper in one hand and traced the logic traced the
    
     When, at last, she was finished, she bowed very low to Ilmarinen.
    "Master Sjuntio had the right of it," she said, her voice a breathy whis-
    per. " He told me that if anyone could find the meaning hidden in my
    experiment, you would be the mage, for you have the most original cas
    of mind And he knew whereof he s oke I woulA n-, lin a d-u-nd
    
     Unianinen shrugged. "Siuntio is smarter than I am. Siuntio is smarter
    than anybody is, as a matter of fact. But he isn't crazy. You need to be a
    little bit crazy - or it doesn't hurt, anyhow." He eyed Pekka like a master
     eing a student who might have promise. "And now do you understand
    
    "Inversion," Pekka answered, so absently that Ilmarinen clapped hi
    
     "Just so!" He almost cackled with glee, sounding like a laying hen
     I never would have thought of such a thing," Pekka said ga
    Never. When I began to try to learn whether similarity and contagion
    were related, I always thought the relationship I found, if I found any a
    0, would be a direct one. When I failed to show a direct one, I thought
    
    that meant there was none at all - only that didn't work, either."

    




    542
    
    Harry Turtledove
    
    are wrong," Ilmarinen said. "I told you - I told all of you - as much
    before, but you did not heed me. Now we have numbers that suggest
    why your cursed acorns acted as they did, and what happened to them 91
    well."
     That wasn't explicit in the sheet he'd given Pekka. She looked thro gh
    the sprawling lines of symbols again. She had to look twice; even
    implications were subtle. Once she found what Ilmaninen was driving at,:~
    though, she could work them out for herself. She looked up from
    sheet to the theoretical sorcerer. "But that's impossible!"
     "It's what happened." His voice was peculiarly flat. After a inomen,
    she realized she'd angered him. She'd seen him play at anger befo
    when he ranted and blustered. This was different. This made her feel as
    if he'd caught her doing something vicious and rather nasty.
     In a small voice, she said, "I suppose the classical Kaunians would have
    said the same thing if they saw the spells that went into making a le
    caravan go."
     "Not if they had any sense, they wouldn't," Ilmarinen said, but now
    in something close to his usual sardonic tones. He reached out and tapped
    the paper with a gnarled finger. "If you can show me an alternative expla-
    nation, then you may tell me this one is impossible. Till then, wouldn't
    it be more interesting to try to come up with more experiments to see
    whether we're crazy or not?" He shook his head and held up that finger
    again. "Of course we're crazy. Let's see if we're right or not."
     "Aye." Ideas rose to the top of Pekka's mind from below like bubbles
    in a pot of water coming to a boil. "If this is right" - she shook the paper
    - "we have a lifetime's worth of experiments waiting ahead for us. T
    lifetimes' worth, maybe."
     "That's so, Mistress Pekka." Ilmaninen sighed.
     He was old. He did not have a long lifetime ahead of him, let alotic
    two. "I'm sorry, Master," Pekka said quietly. "I was tactless."  M
     "What?" Ilmarinen stared, then laughed. "Oh, no, not that, you silly
    lass. I've known for a long time that I wouldn't be here forever,
                                            lav':
                                             'n
    
                                             as
    
                                             t0
                                           i
    
                                           y
    
                                           n w
                                           apped
    
    too much longer. No. I was thinking that, if things keep going as t
    have over there, over yonder" - he pointed north and west, toward the
    mainland of Derlaval - "we'd better pack those two lifetimes' wo~l of
    experiments into about half a year."
     Pekka though about that and slowly nodded. "And if we can 9 t?"

    




    INTo THE DARKNESS
    
    "We'd better do it anyway," Ilmaninen said.
    
    as
    
    per
    wo
    
    one
    
    silly
    even
    they
    the
    h of
    
    543
    
     Leofsig dipped his straight razor into the bowl of hot water he'd
    begged from his mother to get the soapsuds off it, then went back to tnim-
    nung the lower edge of his beard. With his head tilted so far back, he had
    trouble seeing the mirror he'd propped on the chest of drawers in the
    room he now had to share with Ealstan.
     Sidroc stuck his head in, perhaps to find out of Ealstan was there.
    When he saw what Leofsig was doing, he grinned unpleasantly. "Don't
    cut your throat, now," he said, almost as if he meant to be helpful.
     In one smooth movement, Leofsig was off the stool he'd been using
    and halfway across the room. "You want to think about what you say to
    a man with a razor in his hand," he remarked pleasantly.
     "Eep," Sidroc said, and disappeared faster than he would have had a
    first-rank mage enspelled him. Had a first-rank mage enspelled him,
    though, he would have stayed disappeared. That, Leofsig thought, was
    too much to hope for.
     Laughing a little, he went back to the mirror and finished shaving.
    Then he put on his best tunic and his best cloak. A fussy granimarian
    would have called it his better cloak, for he had only two. He'd had more
    before the war started, but they were on Sidroc and Uncle Hengist's
    backs these days.
     This one, of dark blue wool, would do well enough. His father had
    one very much like it, and so did Ealstan. "You can't go wrong with dark
    blue wool," Hestan had said, ordening all three of them at the same time.
    When the tailor delivered them, Ealstan had called them a proof of the
    law of similanity. Leofsig smided, remembering.
     "Let me see you," his mother said before he could get out the door.
    Obediently, he stood still, Elfryth brushed away an almost-visible speck of
    lint, smoothed down the hair he'd just combed, and finally nodded. "You
    look very nice," she said. "If your young lady isn't swept off her feet, she
    ought to be." She'd been saying that as long as he'd been taking young
    ladies out. She added something newer: "Don't try sneaking in after cur-
    few. It's not worth the risk."
     "Aye," he said. His father would have told him exactly the same thing,
    and his father's advice, he knew, was nearly always good. Even so, he
    sounded at best dutiful, at worst resigned, rather than enthusiastic.
    
    I

    




    544
    
    Harry Turtledove
    
     Elfryth stood on tiptne to kiss him on the cheek. "Go on, then," she
    said. "If you must get home sooner than you'd like, you won't want to
    waste your time standing around chattering with the likes of me."
    That being true, Leofsig nodded and left. He'd walked half a block
    before he realized he should have denied it for politeness' sake. Too late
    now, he thought, and kept going.           A
     By then, he'd already pulled the cloak tight around him and fastened
    the polished brass button that closed it at the neck. A raw wind blew up
    Irom the southwest. There might be frost on the windows, maybe even
    on the grass, come morning. As Gromheort went, that made it a chilly
    
    evening.
     A couple of Algarvian soldiers on patrol rode past him. They didd4
    look twice. To them, he wasjust another subject. Maybe they knew how
    much he hated them. If they did, they didn't care.
     The sun was low in the northwest when he knocked on a door a few
    blocks from his own. A plump man a few years older than his own father
    opened it. "Good day, Master Elfsig," Leofsig said. "Is Felgilde ready?"A
     "She won't be but a moment," his companion's father said. "Step oil'
    in, Leofs1g. You have time for a cup of wine, I think, but only a quick
    one.
    
     "I thank you, sir," Leofsig said. Elfsig led him to the parlor a
    brought the wine himself Felgilde's little brother, whose name Leofsig
    always forgot, made faces at him from the door-way - though only wheni
    Elfsig's back was turned. Leofsig ignored him. Ealstan had been only a Nt
    too big to play such games when young men started coming to Hestan's
    house to take Conberge out.
    
     Leofsig hadn'i quite finished his wine when Felgilde came into Ac
    parlor. Elfsig said, "You'll want to bring her home before curfew, so we
    don't have trouble with the redheads." His eyes twinkled. "Maybe yoti
    won't want to do it - I recall what it's like being your age, believe it4
    not - but you will, for her sake."
    
     "Aye, sir," Leofsig said, so mournfully that Elfsig laughed.. He w Id
    cheerfully have disobeyed his own mother; evading the wishes of
    Felgilde's family was harder. Putting the best face on it he could, 4
    turned to her. "Shall we be off~"
    
                                               Mr
    
     "Aye." She kissed Elfsig, who wore rather a bushy beard, on the end
    of his nose. Leofsig offered her his arm. She took it. Her maroon cloak

    




    INTo THE DARKNESS
    
    545
    
    went well with his blue one. She'd done up her black hair in a fancy pile
    of curls. She looked like her father, but in her tlfsig's rather doughy
    features were sharply carved. She said, "I hope the play is good."
     "It's supposed to be very funny," Leofsig answered as they headed for
    the door. Most of the plays that ran in Gromheort these days were farces.
    Real life was grim enough to make serious drama less attractive than it
    would have been in better times.
     People streamed toward the playhouse, which stood a couple of doors
    down from the public baths. Leofsig saw two or three couples come righi
    out of the men's and women's wings of the baths, meet, and head for the
    theater. One such pair all but ran to get in line ahead of Felgilde and him.
    "I hope we'll have decent seats," Felgilde said.
     ffyou'd been ready when Igot there, we'd have a better chance. But Leofsig,
    like any other swain with an ounce of sense in his head, knew better than
    to say that out loud. He paid for two seats. He and Felgilde both held out
    their hands so a fellow could stamp them to prove they'd paid. Thus
    marked, they went inside.
     Leofsig bought wine for both of them, and also bread and olives and,
    roasted almonds and cheese. A stew of some sort bubbled in a pot, too,
    but he knew it wouldn't be much more than gruel. The playhouse had
    no easier time getting meat than anyone else in Gromheort. Spitting out
    olive pits as they walked, he and Felgilde headed for the benches in front
    of the stage.
     At the entranceway, a sign that hadn't been there the last time he came
    to the theater announced, KAUNIANS IN REAR BALCONY ONLY.
    "Oh, good!" Felgilde exclaimed. "More seats for the rest of us."
     He looked at her. Most of what he wanted to say, he couldn't, not
    unless he also wanted to betray himself Felgilde and her farmily didn't
    know he'd escaped from the Algarvian captives' camp, or how he'd
    escaped, or with whose help. Like most people, they thought the red-
    heads had released him. The fewer folk who knew any different, the
    better.
     He did say, "They're people, too.9'
     "They're not Forthwegians, not truly," Felgilde said. "And the
    trousers their women wear - well, I mean really. " She tossed her head.
     As he'd grown toward manhood, Leofsig had eyed a good many
    trousered Kaunian women. He didn't know of a Forthwegian man who
    
    I

    




    546
    
    Harry Turtledove
    
    hadn't - including, he had no doubt whatever, Felgilde's father. Saying
    anything about that also struck him as unwise. He pointed. "There's a
    spot wide enough for two, I think," he said. "Come on - let's hurry."
     The spot proved barely wide enough for two. That meant Felgilde had
    to squeeze in close behind him. He didn't mind. She leaned her head on
    his shoulder. He didn't mind that, either. She was wearing a floral scent
    that tickled his nose. When he slipped an arm around her, she snuggled
    closer. He should have been very happy. Most of him was very happy.
    Even the small part that wasn't very happy made excuses for Felgilde: if
    she didn't care for Kaunians, how was she different from most
    Forthwegians? She wasn't, and Leofsig knew it.
     "Ali," she said as the lights dimmed and the curtains slid back from the
    stage. Leofsig leaned forward, too. He'd come here to forget his troubles
    and his kingdom's, not to dwell on them.
     Out came an actor and actress dressed as Forthwegian peasants from a
    couple of centuries before: stock comic figures. "Sure is hard times," the
    actor said. He looked at the actress. "Twenty years ago, now, we had
    plenty to eat." He looked at her again. "Twenty years ago, I was marri
    to a good-looking woman."
    
     "Twenty years ago, I was married to a young man," she retorted.
     He winced, as from a blow. "If I had red hair, I bet my belly'd be full."
     "If you had red hair, you'd look like an idiot." The actress looked out
    at the audience, then shrugged. "Wouldn't change things much, would
    it?"
     They took things from there, poking fun at the Algarvian occupiers,
    at themselves, and at anything else that happened to get in their way. The
    villain of the piece was a Kaunian woman - played by a short, squat,
    immensely fat Forthwegian actress in a blond wig; she looked all the more
    grotesque in tight-fitting trousers. Leofsig wondered what the real
    Kaunians in the rear of the balcony thought of her. Felgilde thought she
    was very funny. So did Leofsig, when he wasn't think about how laugh-
    ing at her helped estrange Forthwegians and Kaunians.
     In the end, she got what she deserved, being married off to a drunke
    swineherd, or perhaps to one of his pigs. The Algarvians in the paly weia
    off to harass some other fictitious village: the sort of relief Gromheort
    wanted to see but never would. And the two peasants who'd opened the
    show stood at center stage. The man of the pair addressed the audienc

    




    he
    
    INTo THE DARKNESS
    
    "So you see, my friends, things can turn out all right."
     "Oh, shut up, you old fool," said the actress who'd played his wife.
    The curtain slid out and hid them both, then parted so they and the rest
    of the company could take their bows and get their applause. The loud-
    est cheers - and a lot of howls of counterfeit lust - went to the fat woman
    who'd played the Kauman. She twitched her hips, which raised more
    howls.
     "That was fun," Felgilde said as she and Leofsig filed out of the play-
    house. "I enjoyed it. Thank you for taking me." She smiled up at him.
     "You're welcome," he answered, more absently than he should have.
    He'd enjoyed the play, too, enjoyed it and at the same time been embar-
    rassed at himself for enjoying it. He'd never known that peculiar mix of
    feelings before, and kept at them in his head, as a child will pick at a scab
    until it bleeds anew.
     Out on the street, Felgilde said, "I'm cold," and shivered, as fine a
    dramatic performance as any back at the theater. Leofsig spread his cloak
    so it covered both of them, as he knew she wanted him to do. Under that
    concealment, they could be bolder than they would have dared without
    it. She put her arm around his waist, so they walked as close together as
    they had sat during the play. He caressed her breast through the fabric of
    her tunic. She hadn't let him do that before. Now she sighed and put her
    other hand on top of his, squeezing him against her soft, firm flesh.
     Walking thus, they hardly walked at all, and got back to Felgilde's
    house only a few minutes before curfew. In front of the door, where her
    family might see, she let Leofsig chastely kiss her on the cheek. Then she
    humed inside.
     Leofsig hurried, too, back toward his own home. As he trotted
    through the dark streets of Gromheort, half of him wanted to ask her out
    again as soon as he could. Maybe I'll get my hand under her tunic next time,
    that half thought. The other half never wanted to see her again. On he
    ran, at war within himself.
    
     Femao reveled in the pleasure of a ley-line caravan. Traveling through
    Setubal in a snug, water-tight coach with a stove at the far end was
    infinitely preferable to a caravan across the land of the Ice People on
    camelback, to say nothing of his journey across the ocean on
    leviathanback. Fernao was perfectly willing to say nothing of that

    




    548
    
    Harry Turtledove
    
    journey; he kept trying to forget it. Its sole virtue, as far as he was con-
    cerned, was that it had brought him back to Lagoas.
     He stretched luxuriously - so luxuriously that he brushed against the
    man who shared the bench with him. "Your pardon, I crave," he
    murmured.
    
    sheet.
    
    "It's all iight," the fellow said, hardly raising his eyes from his news
    
     To Fernao, that casual forbearance felt like a luxury, too. King Penda
    would have complained endlessly about being bumped. King Penda, as
    the mage knew to his sorrow, complained endlessly about everything.
    These days, King Vitor and his courtiers were nursemaiding Penda; the
    fugitive King of Forthweg was no longer Fernao's worry.
     Setubal seemed little changed from the way it had looked before
    Fernao set out for Yanina to pluck Penda from King Tsavellas's palace.
    Had he not already known, he would have been hard pressed to tell
    Lagoas was a kingdom at war. Or so he thought, till he saw one of his
    favorite restaurants and several other buildings on the same block reduced
    to charred rubble.
     His exclamation must have held surpnise as well as dismay, for his seat-
    mate gave him a quizzical stare. "Where have you been, pal?" the man
    asked. "Mezentio's stinking dragons gave us that little present a couple
    months ago."
     "Out of the kingdom," Fernao answered mournfully. He sighed.
    "The best fried prawns, the best smoked eel in Setubal - gone."
     . "You won't find eel any more smoked than it was the night those eggs
    fell, and that's a fact," the other man said before starting to read again.
     He got out of the caravan coach a couple of stops later. No one took
    his place. Out here past Vinhaes Park, fewer people were traveling away
    from the center of the city. 4\4ore would be going back when the carj-
    van returned.
     "University!" the conductor called. "All out for the university."
     The mage hurried across the campus of Varzim Uniwersity toward its
    beating heart: the library. Having finally put his own affairs in order aftcr
    his long absence, he could be in to find out how his profession bid
    91
    changed, had grown, while he wasn't looking.
     Students in their yelloiV tunics and lighr blue kilts eyed him curiouj
    as he passed them. "What's that old man doing here?" one of them inut-

    




    INTo THE DARKNESS
    
    549
    
    tered to another, although Fernao was hardly old enough to have sired
    either of them.
     "Maybe he's a lecturer," the other student said.
     "Nah." The first one shook his head. "When did you ever see a lec-
    turer move so fast?" That seemed an incontrovertible argument, or
    maybe Fernao had just hurried out of earshot before the second student
    replied.
     In front of the library stood an excellent reproduction of a classical
    Kaunian marble statue of a philosopher. The original had been carved in
    a sunnier clime; in his light tunic and trousers, the philosopher looked
    miserably cold. The little icicle hanging off the end of his nose only added
    to the effect.
     Two guards at the top of the stairs leading into the library looked mis-
    erably cold, too. If they'd had icicles on the ends of their noses, though,
    they'd knocked them off recently. Fernao started to stride past them, but
    one moved quickly to block his way. "Here" what's this?" he demanded,
    drawing himself up in indignation.
     "A library is a weapon of war, sir," the guard said. "You'll need to
    show us what manner of man you are before you pass within."
     "You don't suppose the Algarvians have libraries of their own?"
    Femao asked, acid in his voice. But perhaps they did not have any one
    that matched Varzini University's. And worrying about knowledge as a
    weapon of war was, he supposed, better than ignoring it., From his belt
    pouch he took the small card certifying him as a first-rank member in
    good standing of the Lagoan Guild of Mages (he was glad he'd bought a
    life membership after making first rank; otherwise, his affiliation would
    have lapsed while he was on his journey, and he surely wouldn't have got
    round to renewing it yet). "Here. Does this satisfy you?"
     Both guards solemnly studied the card. if hey looked at each other.
    The one who hadn't tried to block his way nodded. The one who had
    tried stepped aside, saying, "Aye, sir. Pass on."
     Pass on Fernao did. Had he been an Algarvian spy, he rmight have
    forged or stolen his card. He did not mention that to the guard. Had he
    done so, odds were that no one would ever have been admitted into the
    library again.
     He hurried upstairs to the third floor. Whei he.got there, he was glad
    to discover the librarians hadn't gone through one of their periodic
    
    0

    




    550
    
    Harry Turtledove
    
    reshelving frenzies while he was far away. Otherwise, he would have had
    to hurry right back down again, to find out where the journals he wanted
    were hidden. Reshelving probably would have done as much as the
    guards did to keep Algarvians from ferreting information out of the
    library.
    
     As things were, he found new numbers of such tomes as The Royal
    Lagoanjournal of Pure and Applied Magecraft, Kaunian Sorcery (the past year's
    last two fascicules were missing: either the fall of Priiekule had prevented
    their publication or copies hadn't been able to make it across the Strait of
    Valmlera), and the Annual Sorcerous Compendium of the Seven Princes of
    Kuusamo. Having found them, he carried them to a battered old chair
    behind the shelves, a chair in which he'd done a lot of reading over the
    years.
     There in Fernao's hideaway, he flipped rapidly through the journals,
    slowing down when he found an article that interested him. After he'd
    put aside the Annual Sorcerous Compendium, he noticed he'd hardly slowed
    down at all while going through it
     "That's odd," he murmured, and turned to the table of contents at the
    rear of the volume to see if he'd missed something. He hadn't, and
    scratched his head. Before he'd gone away, the Kuusamans had been
    doing some very interesting work at the deep theoretical level. Siuntio -
    who was world-famous, at least among mages - and younger theoreti-
    clans like Raahe and Pekka had asked some provocative questions. He'd
    hoped they might have come up with some answers by now, or at least
    some more new and interesting questions.
     If they had, they weren't publishing them in the Annual Sorcerms
    Compendium. Its pages were full of articles on horticultural magecraft, ley-
    me engineering, and improvements in crystallomancy: interesting,
    significant, but not at the cutting edge of the field. With a shrug, he set
    the volume aside and went on to a jelgavan journal, which also proved
    to cut off abruptly with the previous spring's fascicule.
     He was three articles into the Royal Lagoanjournal when he sudde
    sat up very straight and slammed the heavy volume closed. It made a 10tid,
    booming noise; someone somewhere else in the third floor exclaimed ill
    surprise. Fernao sat still; to his relief, nobody came looking to see what
    had happened.
     "If they've found any new answers, if they've found any

    




    us
    
    hat
    
    ew
    
    INTo THE DARKNESS
    
    551
    
    questions, they aren't publishing them," he muttered under his breath.
    He set his hand on the leather binding of the Annual Sorcerous
    Compendium. His first assumption was that the Kuusamans hadn't found
    anything, but how likely was that? Would all of their best theoretical
    sorcerers have fallen silent at once?
     Maybe. He didn't know. He couldn't know. But maybe, too, maybe
    they'd found something interesting and important: so interesting and so
    important, they didn't care to tell anyone else about it.
     "And maybe your head's full of moonbeams, too," Fernao told him-
    self, his voice barely above a whisper.
     But could he afford to take the chance? Kuusamo and Lagoas, once
    upon a time, had fought like cats and dogs. They hadn't fought in a
    couple of hundred years. He knew that didn't mean they couldn't fight
    again, though. If the Kuusamans ever decided to stop the halffiearted
    island war they were waging against Gyongyos, what would keep them
    fromiumping on Lagoas's back? Nothing Fernao could see, the more so
    as his own kingdom couldn't give over the war against Algarve without
    becoming King Mezentio's vassals.
     Reluctant as a lover having to leave his beloved too soon, he set the
    journals on their shelves and went downstairs. "The Guild may know
    more about this than I," he muttered under his breath, and then, "I hope
    the Guild knows more about this than U'
     Both guards nodded to him as he humied past them. Now that he was
    going away, they were content. He didn't laugh till they couldn't see his
    face. They might be better than nothing; he remained unconvinced they
    were a lot better than nothing.
     He waited at the caravan stop for a car to take him back to Setubal. He
    had to change to a different ley line downtown, not far from the harbor.
    His secondjourney was shorter: less a mile. He got out of the caravan car
    across the street from the Grand Hall of the Lagoan Guild of Mages.
     It was a grand hall, built of snowy marble in severe neoclassical style.
    The statuary group in front of it might have been snatched straight out of
    the heyday of the Kaunian Empire, too. The only thing that would have
    been odd to a veri table classical Kaunian was that the statues, like the hall,
    remained unpainted. Temporal sorcery had proved that the Kaunians, in
    the old days, slapped paint on everything that didn't move. But builders
    hadn't known that in the days when the guild hall went up. Most people
    
    1 ,

    




    552
    
    Harry Turtledove
    
    still didn't realize it. And, by the time anyone at all knew it, pristine ma.
    ble had become as much a neoclassical tradition as painted stone had be
    in Kaunian days.
     Inside the hall, Fernao exchanged greetings with half a dozen mage
    Some had heard he was back and were glad to see him; others hadn't, at
    were astonished to see him. Lagoans weren't inveterate gabbers 11
    Algarvians or Yaninans, but he still needed longer than he'd wanted
    make his way to the guild secretary's office.
     "Ali, Master Fernao!" exclaimed that worthy, a plump, good-nature
    fellow named Brinco. "And how may I help you this, I fear, not so love
    day?"
     "I should like to see Grandmaster Pinhiero for a few minutes, if suc
    a thing be possible," Fernao answered.
     Brinco's frown suggested that the mere thought he might have to te
    Fernao no was enough to devastate him. "I cannot say with certain
    whether it be possible or not, my lord," the secretary said. He got to hi
    feet. "If your Excellency would have the generosity to wait?"
     "Of course," Fernao answered. "How could I refuse you anything?"
     "Easily, I doubt not," Brinco replied. "But bide a moment, and
    shall see what we shall see." He vanished behind an elaborately carve
    oaken door. When he emerged, smiles filled his face. "Your desire shal
    be granted in every particular. The grandmaster says his greatest pleasure
    would lie in seeing you for as long as you desire."
     Fernao had known Pinhiero a fair number of years. He doubted the
    grandmaster had said any such thing; a grumpy Oh, all tight was mu
    more likely. When it came to giving pleasure, Brinco liked to set
    thumb on the scale. Sometimes that annoyed Fernao. Not today. Getting
    any of what he wanted suited him fine. "I thank you," he said, and x~
    into the grandmaster's office.
     Pinhiero was about sixty, his sandy hair and mustaches going gray. H
    peered up at Fernao through reading glasses that made his eyes look eno
    mous. "Well," he growled, "what's so important?" In public ceremo~ies
    he could be dignity, learning, and magnificence personified. Among
    colleagues, he didn't bother with any such mask, and simply was what lic
    was.
     "Grandmaster, I've come across something interesting in the libraii -
    or rather, I've come across nothing interesting in the library, which is

    




    INTo THE DARKNESS
    
    553
    
    interesting in and of itself," Fernao said.
     "Not to me, it isn't," Pinhiero said. "You get as old as I am, you don't
    have time for riddles any more. Spit it out or leave."
     "Aye, Grandmaster," Fernao said, and explained what he'd found -
    and what he hadn't. Pinhiero listened with no change of expression. He
    was famous for that. Fernao finished, "I can't prove this means anything,
    Grandmaster, but if it does mean something, it means something impor-
    tant." He waited to see whether Pinhiero thought it meant anything.
     "Kuusamans won't give you the time of day unless they feel like it,"
    the grandmaster said at last. "Come to that, they won't give each other
    the time of day, either. Seven princes - cursed silly arrangement." He
    glared at Fernao. "You know how much trouble you can get into by try-
    ing to reason from something that isn't there?"
     "Aye, Grandmaster," Fernao said, wondering if that was disrmissal.
     It wasn't. Pinhiero said, "Here. Walt." He pulled from a desk drawer
    an unfashionably large and heavy crystal. Staring down into it, he mur-
    mured a name: "Siuntio." Fernao's eyes widened. The grandmaster went
    on, now in classical Kaunian: "By the brotherhood we share, I summon
    thee." Fernao's eyes got wider still.
     The image of a white-haired, wrinkled Kuusaman formed in the
    crystal. "I am here, my bad-tempered brother," he said, also in Kaunlan.
     "You old fraud, we're on to you," Pinhiero growled.
     "You dream," Sluntio said. "You dream, and imagine yourself
    awake." His image disappeared, leaving the crystal only a sphere of stone.
     Pinhiero grunted. "It's big, all right. If it were smaller, he'd have done a
    betterjob of denying it. What have they gone and done - and will they do
    it to us next?" He scowled at Fernao. "How would you like to go to
    Kuusamo?"
     "Not much," Fernao answered. The grandmaster ignored him. He
    was already making plans.
    
     Bembo assumed a hurt expression. It was, he knew, a good hurt
    expression. Every once in a while, it even softened the heart of Sergeant
    Pesaro. Any hurt expression that could soften the heart of a constabulary
    sergeant had to be a good one.
     But it did nothing to soften Saffa's heart. "No," the sketch artist said.
    "I don't want to take supper with you again, or go to the playhouse with

    




    554
    
    Harty Turtledove
    
    you, or go strolling in the park, or do anything with you. I really don't,
    Bembo. Enough was enough."
     "But why not?" Bembo thought the question was, and sounded, per-
    fectly reasonable. An impartial listener, of which there were none outside
    the constabulary station, would assuredly have called it whining.
     "Why?" Saffa took a deep breath. "Because even though you had a
    good idea and Captain Sasso liked it, you still haven't been promoted.
    That's one reason: I don't want to waste my time with a man who isn't
    a winner. And the other is, you only want one thing from a girl, and you
    don't even bother hiding it."
    
    that. "
    
    am a man." Bembo struck an affronted pose. "Of course I want
    
     "You aren't listening - and why am I not surprised?" Saffa said. "It's
    the only thing you really want from me. You wouldn't care about any-
    thing else I did, as long as I gave you that. And because you're like that,
    it's, the one thing you'll never, ever get from me."
     She turned away from him and headed for the stairs, putting a little
    something extra in her walk to give him a hint about what he inlight be
    missing. "How about next week?" Bembo called after her. "Suppose I ask
    you again next week?"
     Safla. climbed the stairs. Bembo automatically tried to look up her kilt,
    but she kept her arms, close to her sides to hold it down. She went into
    the station and closed the door. Then she opened it, looked out at him,
    smiled sweetly, and said, "No." Still smiling, she closed the door again.
     "Bitch," Bembo muttered. "Miserable bitch.." He trudged toward the
    stairway himself "at I really need, he thought, is a Kaunian hussy like the
    ones in the romances I've been reading. They don't tell a man no. All they ever
    do is begfor more. They can't get enough of a strong A 1garvian man.
     He scowled. All the Kaunians in Tn*carico had gone into camps. He'd
    helped put them there, and he hadn't even had the chance to have ain,
    fun while he was doing it. Life wasn't fair, no doubt about it. Those
    Kaunian sluts were probably giving the camp guards all they wanted and
    then some, in exchange for whatever tiny favors they could get out of
    them.
     When Bembo came into the station, Sergeant Pesaro laughed at him.
    He'd have bet the sergeant would. "She flamed you down like a dragon
    
    attacking from out of the sun, didn't she' " Pesaro said.

    




    INTo THE DARKNESS
    
    555
    
     "Ahh, she's not as fancy as she thinks she is," Bembo growled. "Tell
    me one thing she's got that any other broad doesn't."
     "You by the short hairs," Pesaro said, which was crude but unfortu-
    nately accurate. The sergeant went on, "Well, my boy, you can do your
    mooning over her on patrol today."
     "I thought I could get caught up on my paper-work!" Bembo
    exclaimed in dismay. "If I don't get caught up on my paperwork cursed
    soon, Captain Sasso's going to have me for supper."
     "Not as, much fun as Saffa having you for supper, that's certain,"
    Pesaro said, "but it can't be helped. I've got a couple of men down with
    the galloping pukes, and somebody's got to go out there and make cer-
    tain none of our wonderful law-abiding citizens decides to walk off with
    the Kaunian Column in his belt pouch."
     "Have a heart, Sergeant." Bembo gave Pesaro the famous wouncle d
    look.
     It didn't work this time. -"You're going out," the sergeant said
    implacably. "You're my first replacement in, though, so you do get to
    pick whether you want to head over to the west side or to Riversedge."
     Bembo was almost indignant and glum enough to choose to patrol the
    thieves' nest down by the waterfront - almost, but not quite. "I'll take
    the- west side," he said, and Pesaro nodded, unsurprised. Pointing to the
    city map on the wall behind the sergeant, Bembo asked, "Exactly which
    route am I stuck with?"
     "You'll get stuck with Riversedge if you don't quit your griping,"
    Pesaro said. He turned his-swivel chair, which squeaked under him. "You
    get number seven." He pointed. "Plenty of fancy houses, and you
    shouldn't have too much to do unless you flush out a sneak thief ".
     "Coi~ld be worse," Bembo admitted. "Could be better, but could be
    worse, too." From him, that was no small concession. "Better than
    Riversedge, anyhow." And that, as he knew fair well, was no small
    understatement.
     Pesaro wrote Bembo's name on a scrap of paper and pinned it to patrol
    route number seven. "Get moving," the sergeant told him. "That part of
    town, they want to know they've got a constable on the job all the time.
    If they don't, they get on the crystal and start breathing fire at us."
    
     "I'm going, I'm going," Bembo said. In a way, he was glad to escape
    the station. If he sat at a desk and did paperwork, he'd keep watching

    




    556
    
    Harry Turtledove
    
    Saffa and she'd keep sneering at him. But the paperwork really did need
    doing. If he didn't get caught up soon, Captain Sasso would have some
    pointed and pungent things to say to him. Curse it, I was going to get it done
    - well, most of it, anyhow, he thought. No help for that now.
     His breath smoked when he went outside. Snow gleamed on the
    peaks of the Bradano Mountains to the east, but rarely got down to
    Tricarico. Before the war, rich people had gone up into the mountains
    for the privilege of playing in the snow. Now that Algarve ruled on
    both sides of the mountains, they could go up again. Folk from farther
    south would wonder why they bothered, though. As a matter of fact,
    Bembo wondered why they bothered. He'd seen just enough of snow
    to know he didn't want to see more.
     Muttering at his unfortunate fate, he trudged west. A team of garden-
    ers with long-handled shears trimmed the branches of the trees sur-
    rounding a home that probably cost as much as he would make in twenty
    years. He sighed. He lived in a flat even less prepossessing than Saffa's.
     He started to walk by the tree trimmers, then stopped and took a
    second look at them. He whistled, a low note of surprise, and stepped off
    the sidewalk and on to the expanse of close-cropped grass that fronted the
    mansion. Swinging his club as he advanced on the gardeners, he did his
    best to put on a brave show.
     They didn't need long to notice him; he wanted to be noticed. The
    boss of the crew came toward him. "Something wrong, Constable?" lie
    asked. His shears, when you got down to it, made a more formidable
    weapon than Bembo's bludgeon.
    
     11        1             11
    
      Wrong? I don t know about that, pal, Bembo answered. "But
    of those people you've got working for you" - he pointed to the ona~
    meant - "they're women, aren't they? I've got pretty fair eyes, I do, and
    I know a woman when I see one. I know I've never seen one tn'mnu'ng
    trees till now. too."
     "Well, maybe you haven't," the gardener allowed. "Half my workers
    have gone into the army. The work doesn't go away, even if the men dd.
    And so-" He turned to the women he'd hired. "Dalinda, Alcina, Proc4
    - knock off for a bit and come say good day to the constable here."
    
     "Good day, Constable," they chorused, smiling at him.
     "Good day, fair ladies," he answered, sweeping off his hat and bowing
    to each of them in turn. Dalinda wasn't particularly fair, and was brawnier

    




    off
    
    rkers
    n do.
    rocla
    
    wing
     mer
    
    INTo THE DARKNESS
    
    557
    
    than most of the men still working for the master gardener. Procla wasn't
    anything special, either. Alcina, now, Alcina was worth bowing to.
    Seeing her sweaty from pruning branches made Bembo wish he'd got her
    sweaty in a different way. Smiling back at all of them, but at her in par-
    ticular, he asked, "And how do you like men's work?"
     "Fine," they said, all together again, so much in unison that Bembo
    wondered if the gardener had hired them from a singing group that had
    fallen on hard times.
     "Isn't that something?" the constable said, and gave the head gardener
    a poke in the ribs with his elbow. "Tell me, pal - does your wife know
    how you've managed to keep your crew going?"
     "Now, Constable," the fellow answered with a nudge and a wink of
    his own, "do I look that foolish?"
     "Not a bit of it, friend, not a bit of it," Bembo said, chuckling. "But,
    of course, the municipal business licensing bureau does know you've
    changed the conditions under which you're operating?"
     Had the master gardener said aye, Bembo would have given up and
    gone on with his patrol. But the man only frowned a little and said, "I
    hadn't imagined that would be necessary."
     Bembo clicked his tongue between his teeth and looked doleful. "Oh,
    that's too bad. That's really too bad. Those boys are sticklers, aye, they are.
    Why, if they were to find out what you were up to, if I were to tell them
     * " He looked up at the sky, as if he'd forgotten what he was saying.
     "Perhaps we can come to an understanding," the master gardener said,
    hardly even sounding resigned. He knew how the game was played, and
    he'd given Bembo an opening. Taking the constable aside, he asked,
    "Would ten suit you?"
     They haggled for a while before meeting at fifteen. Bembo said, "By
    the powers above, I'll settle for ten if that one wench - Alcina - feels like
    being friendly."
     "I didn't hire her out of a brothel, so I'll have to ask her," the gardener
    said. "If she turns you down, I'll pay you the extra silver and you can buy
    what you want."
     "That's fair," Bembo agreed.
     The gardener went back to Alcina and spoke to her in a low voice. She
    looked back toward Bembo. "Him?" she said. "Ha! " She tossed her head
    in fine contempt.

    




    558
    
    Harry Turtledove
    
     "That costs you another five," Bembo growled at the gardener, his
    ears burning. The other man knew better than to argue with him. He
    paid out the silver without another word. Bembo took it and stalked off,
    pleased and angry at the same time. He'd made a profit, but if he'd been
    a little luckier, he could have had fun, too.
    
     At last, as much by accident as any other way (or so it seemed to him),
    the Lagoans had given Cornelu an assignment he actually wanted to have.
    Looming out of the mist ahead of him and Eforiel was Tirgoviste harbor.
     He thanked the powers above for the mist. Without it, he would have
    had a much harder time approaching his home island. The Algarvians
    patrolled much more alertly than the Sibian navy had - which was one
    huge reason why King Mezentio's men ruled in Sibiu these days.
     Turning back to the Lagoans Eforiel carried, he asked, "All good?" He
    would never be truly fluent in their language, but he was beginning to be
    able to make himself understood.
     "Aye," the three of them said, one after another. They slipped off the
    lines to which they'd clung while the leviathan brought them across the
    sea. Cornelu wondered if the toys under Eforiel's belly were of the same
    sort the niders going into Valmiera had used or something altogether dif-
    ferent. He hadn't asked. It was none of his business.
     "Here. Wait," he said as the Lagoan raiders got ready to swim off.
    Treading water, they looked back at him. From inside his rubber suit, he
    pulled out a thin tube of oiled leather, tightly sealed at both ends. He
    spoke Lagoan phrases he'd carefully memorized: "Envelope in here.
    Please put in post box. For my wife."
     He had not fled Sibiu with any such envelopes - printed in advance to
    show the proper postage fee had been paid - in his possession. Neither
    had any of his fellow exiles from the island kingdom. But Lagoas hid
    hobbyists who collected such things. He'd been able to buy what he
    wanted from a shop that catered to them, and hadn't paid above twice
    what he would have at his own post office.
     One of the Lagoans took the waterproof tube. "Aye, Commander,
    we'll take care of it," he said in Algarvian. That was a two-edge sword:
    it would let him be understood by most Sibians, but might make liffli
    seem an occupier rather than someone fighting the occupiers.
     Cornelu shrugged as he said, I thank you." Few Lagoans really spoke

    




    INTo THE DARKNESS
    
    559
    
    his language. Most thought Algarvian was close enough, and most of the
    time, up till the war, they'd been night. Now, though, a man who used
    -0 endings instead of u-endings and trilled his 'Y's instead of gargling
    them showed he did not come from the unlucky islands King Burebistu
    had ruled.
     With a last wave, the Lagoans swam toward the shore, pushing their
    canister full of trouble ahead ofthem. They vanished into the mist almost
    at once. Cornelu had everything he could do not to slip away from his
    leviathan and swim after them. To come so close to Tirgoviste and not
    be allowed to go ashore was cruel, cruel. And yet, if he disobeyed his
    orders and left Eforiel behind, how could he strike more blows against
    Algarve? If all he wanted was to stay home, he could have surrendered
    after King Mezentio's men seized Sibiu. He had not. He would not.
     "Costache," he murmured. And, somewhere up there in Tirgoviste
    town, he had a son or daughter he'd never seen. That was hard, too.
     Eforiel let out a questioning grunt. Leviathans were smarter than
    animals had any business being, and Eforiel and he had been together
    almost as long as he and Costache. She knew something was wrong, even
    if she couldn't quite fathom what.
     Cornelu sighed and stroked her smooth, pliant skin. It wasn't the
    lover's caress he wanted to give his wife, but had satisfactions of its own.
    I cannot abandon you, either, can IF' he said. Eforiiel grunted again. She
    wanted to tell him something, but he was not clever enough to know
    what.
     His orders were to make for Setubal once more as soon as he had
    dropped off the raiders or saboteurs or whatever they were. Obeying
    those orders exactly as he'd got them proved impossible. He was a war-
    nor disciplined enough to keep from abandoning the fight and trying to
    sneak home to his wife. But not all the discipline in the world could have
    kept him from lingering for a while outside the harbor in the hope of at
    least getting a long, bittersweet look at the land he loved.
     He knew the mist might lay on the sea all day; it often did, in winter-
    time. If it did today, he promised himself he would guide Eforiel south-
    east again when evening came. Till then, he would wait. The Lagoans
    could not complain about when he returned. As he reluctantly admitted
    to himself, they were seamen, too; they understood the sea was not
    always a neat, tidy, precise place.

    




    560
    
    Harry Turtledove
    
     He looked west, in the direction of distant Unkerlant. Kin
    Swernmel's commodores probably timed their leviathan-riders wit
    water clocks, and docked their pay for every minute they were late com-
    ing into port. That was what they called efficiency. Cornelu called i
    madness, but the Unkerlanters cared no more for his opinion than he di
    for Swemmel's.
     Eforiiel lunged off to one side after a pilchard or a squid, almostierk-
    ing Cornelu out of his harness. He laughed; while he was thinking abou
    Unkerlant, an unprofitable pleasure if ever there was one, the leviathan
    was worrying about keeping her belly full. "You have better sense than
    I," he said, and patted her again. She wriggled under his hand, as if to
    answer, Well, of course.
     Little by little, the mist did lift. Cornelu peered into Tirgoviste harbor.
    The warships there were Algarvian now, save for a few captured Sibian
    vessels. Cornelu cursed in a low voice to see the sailing ships that
    brought the Algarvian army to Tirgoviste still in port, their masts and
    yards as bare of canvas as trees were of leaves in this season of the year.
     Tirgoviste rose steeply from the harbor. Cornelu tried to make out
    house he shared with Costache. He knew where it would be, but it
    just too far away for him to let himself pretend he could spy it. In
    mind's eye, though, he saw it plain, and Costache in front of it holding
    their - son? daughter? The mental picture blurred and grew indistinct.
    like a watercolor left out in drizzle.
     Fog and clouds still lingered on the slopes of Tirgoviste's centrA
    mountains. Not for the first time, Cornelu hoped remnants of the Siblan
    army still carried on the fight against the Algarvians. Someone had to be
    carrying on the fight, else the Lagoans would not have sent their men
    Icnd a hand.
    
     A couple of little ley-line patrol boats moved around inside the shel-
    tered waters of the harbor. Cornelu didn't think anything much about
    that till the boats, both flying Algarve's banner of green, white, and red,
    emerged from the harbor and sped toward him and Efoniel at a clip'the
    leviathan could not come close to matching. Then he cursed again in
    good earnest this time: while he'd been eyeing Tirgoviste,
    Mezentio's men on the island had spotted him, too.
     Maybe they thought he was one of their leviathan-riders, comi , IT]
    with news. He dared not take the chance. Besides, even if they did, he

    




    INTo THE DARKNESS
    
                                       ian
                                        be
                                       n to
    
    hel-
    out
    red,
    the
    
    n, in
    King
    
    ng in
    d, he
    
    561
    
    could not continue that masquerade for long, not in a rubber suit still
    stamped over the breast with Sibiu's five crowns. He urged Eforiel down
    into a dive.
     He had played games with patrol boats before, during exercises against
    his own countrymen and during the war against the Algarvians. In exer-
    cises and in action, he'd always managed to evade them. That left him
    confident he could do it yet again. He was annoyed at himself for letting
    the Algarvians spy him, but he wasn't anything more than annoyed.
     Eventually, Eforiel gave the wriggle that meant she needed to surface.
    Comelu let her swim back up toward the air. He'd guided her as closely
    parallel to the shoreline as he could. Surface sailors had little imagination.
    They would assume he'd fled straight out to sea, temified at the sight of
    them. Odds were they wouldn't even notice Eforiel when she spouted.
    If they did, one more underwater run and he'd shake free of them. That
    was how things worked.
     Or so he thought, till Eforiel did come up to breathe. Then, to his hor-
    ror, he discovered that the patrol boats had ridden down a ley line very
    close to the path the leviathan had taken. They'd overran her by a little,
    but they plainly had a good notion of how far and how fast she was likely
    to travel under the sea.
     When she spouted, sailors at the sterns of the patrol boats cried out.
    They were close enough to let Cornelu hear those shouts, thin over the
    water. He forced Eforiel. into another dive as fast as he could. He knew
    she hadn't fully refreshed her lungs, but he also knew the Algarvian boats
    were going to start flinging eggs any minute. He refused to give them a
    target they could not miss.
     Fling eggs they did. He heard them splash into the sea. The Algarvian
    mages had come up with something new, too, for they did not burst as
    soon as they hit the water, but sank for a while before suddenly releasing
    their energy far below the surface.
     The deep bursts ternified Eforiel, who swam faster and harder than
    ever, and barely under Cornelu's control. He knew she would have to
    surface sooner because of it, but he couldn't do anything about it. No -
    he could and did hope that, when she surfaced this time, she would have
    evaded the patrol boats.
      And so she had. Oh, one of them was fairly close, but out of egg-tosser
    
    L-range. It did not turn and move toward her when she st)outed. Mavbe

    




    562
    
    Harry Turtledove
    
    the boat couldn't. Maybe she'd come up for air in a stretch of ocean well
    away from any ley lines. Ships that pulled their energy from the world
    grid were swifter and surer than those that did not, but they could travel
    only where the grid let them. Where it did not ... Cornelu thumbed his
    nose at the patrol boat. "Here, my dear, we are safe," he told Eforiel.
    "Rest as you will."
     He never saw the dragon that dropp~d the egg toward Eforiel. He
    never saw the egg, either, though its splash drenched him. It sank below
    the surface of the sea, as the ones the patrol boats tossed had done, and
    then it burst.
     Eforiel's great body shielded Comelu from the worst of the energies.
    The leviathan writhed in torment. Blood cri'msoned the sea. Comelu
    knew - and the knowledge tore at him - he could not save her; too much
    blood was pouring forth. He also knew it would draw sharks.
     That left him one choice. Cursing the Algarvians - and cursing him-
    self for not doing a better job of watching the air - he struck out for
    Tirgoviste. He wasn't close to the town that bore the name, not after
    Eforiel's desperate flight, but he could still reach land. Whether the
    Lagoans liked it or not, he was coming home.

    




    20.
    
    When the hard knock came on the door, Vanai shivered. She thought -
    she feared - it had an Algarvian sound. Maybe, if she didn't answer, who-
    ever was out there would go away. It was, of course, a forlorn hope. The
    knock sounded again, sharper and more insistent than ever.
     "Powers above, Vanai! Go see who that is, before he breaks down the
    door," Bri'vibas called irritably. In a softer voice, he went on, "How is a
    person to think with distractions that never cease?"
     "I am going, my grandfather," Vanai said, resignation in her own tone.
    Brivibas didn't deal with distractions. That was herjob.
     She unbarred the door and threw it wide. Then she shivered again -
    not only was the day about as chilly as weather ever got in Oyngestun,
    but there stood Major Spinello, a squad of Algarvian soldiers behind him.
    "Good day," he said in his fluent Kaunian, looking her up and down in
    a way she did not like. But, despite his eyes, he kept his voice busi-
    nesslike: "I require to see your grandfather."
     "I shall fetch him, sir," Vanai said, but she could not resist adding, "I
    still do not think he will aid you."
     "Perhaps he will, perhaps he won't." Spinello sounded indifferent. Vanai
    did not believe he was, not for a moment. He went on, "I have, I admit,
    discovered a new inducement. Bring him here, that I may speak of it."
     "Please wait. " Vanai did not invite him into the house. If he came in
    uninvited, she could not do anything about that. Going into Brivibas's
    study, she said, "My grandfather, Major Spinello would have speech with
    you.
     "Would he?" Brivibas said. "Well, I would not have speech with
    him." The expression on Vanal's face must have been eloquent, for, with
    a grimace, he set down his pen. "I gather the choice is not mine?" Vanai
    
    563

    




    564
    
    Harry Turtledove
    
    nodded. Brivibas sighed and rose. "Very well, my granddaughter. I shall
    accompany you.
     "Ali, here you are," Spinello said when Brivibas appeared before him.
    "The next question is, why are you here?"
     "Men have been looking to answer that question since long before the
    days of the Kauman Empire, Major," Vanal's grandfather said coldly. "I
    fear that no satisfactory response has yet come to light, though philoso-
    phers do continue their work."
     "I was not speaking of philosophy," the Algarvian officer said. "I was
    asking why you, Briivibas, are here, at this house. We have been recruit-
    ing laborers in this distrii ct for some time. Only an oversight can have kept
    you from being one of them. I have been ordered to correct the said
    oversight, and I shall. Come along with me, old man. There are roads that
    need building, bridges that need repairing, piles of rubble that need clear-
    ing. Your scrawny Kaunian carcass isn't worth much, but it will have to
    do. Come on. Now."
     Bn*vibas looked down at his hands. They were pale and soft and
    smooth; the only callus he had was by the nail of his right nuiddle finger:
    a writer's callus. He turned to Vanal. "Take care of my books, if you pos-
    sibly can - and of yourself, of course." In character to the last, she thought
     books first, then her. Before she could say anything, Bri'vibas nodded
    to Major Spinello. "I am ready."
     Spinello and the soldiers led him away. He did not look back at Vanai,
    who stood in the doorway. The Algarvian major did look back. just
    before he and Bri'vibas and the troopers turned a comer, he waved gaily
    to her. Then they were gone.
     She stood there for another couple of minutes, letting heat leak out of
    the house through the open door, before she finally closed it. The chill
    around her heart made the weather hardly worth noticing. She didn't
    know exactly how old her grandfather was, but he had to be up past sixty.
    He'd never done a day's labor - not the kind of labor Spinello was talk-
    ing about - in his life. How long would he, how long could he, last? Not
    long. She was sure of that.
     There had been times - more than a few of them - when she wished
    he would go away and leave her alone and not bother her again. Now he
    was gone. The house they'd shared since she was tiny seemed much too
    big and much too empty without him. She wandered aimlessly from

    




    INTo THE DARKNESS
    
    e
    
    0
    
    565
    
    room to room.
     Eventually, long after she took her midday meal most days, she realized
    she was hungry. She ate some bread and some dried figs, having no
    energy to make anything more ambitious. For supper, she started a thick
    soup with barley and what little sausage she found in the larder. She had
    no appetite, but her grandfather would be hungry.
     Bn*vlbas came home almost two hours later than she thought he
    would. She'd never seen him so filthy in all her life, nor half so wom.
    Most of his fingernails were broken; they all had black crescents ground
    under them. His palms were nothing but blisters and blood.
     Vanai took one look at him and burst into tears. "There, there, my
    granddaughter," he said in what she heard for the first time as an old
    man's voice, bri'ttle as dry grass. "Spinello thinks his logic keen, but it shall
    not persuade me."
     ,, Eat," Vanal said, as he had so often said to her. Eat he did, and lustily,
    but he fell asleep a little more than halfivay through the bowl of soup.
    Vanal shook him, but he would not wake. Had he not been breathing,
    she would have wondered if he was dead.
     At last, she managed to rouse him and half carry him to the bedroom.
    I must be up and away from here before sunrise tomorrow," he said, his
    voice distant but clear. Vanai violently shook her head. "Oh, but I must,"
    Brivibas insisted. I rely on you for it: if I am not, they win beat me and
    I shall have to labor anyhow. I rely on you, my granddaughter. You must
    not fail me."
     Through tears, Vanal said, I obey, my grandfather," and then,
    because she could not help herself, "Wouldn't it be easier to give
    Spinello, curse him, what he wants from you?"
     "Easier? No doubt." Brivibas yawned enormously. "But it would be
    wrong." His head hit the pillow. His eyes closed. He began to snore.
     Vanai felt like a murderer when she woke him the next morning. He
    thanked her, which only made things worse. She gave him the remains
    of the evening's soup for breakfast and bread and cheese and dried mush-
    rooms - some from Ealstan's basket - to eat while he worked. And then
    he was off, and she was alone in a house where the wind rattling a shut-
    ter was enough to make her leap in the air like a startled cat.
     He came back late again that night, and the next one, and the next.
    Every day of labor seemed to age him a month, and he had not so very
    
    I
    
    I

    




    566
    
    Harty Turtledove
    
    many months to spare. "It gets easier as I grow accustomed to it," he
    would say, but it was a he. Vanal knew it. Every day, the flesh thinned on
    his face, until she thought it was a staring skull that looked back at her out
    of bright blue eyes and spoke pedantic reassurances that did not reassure.
     One morning after he staggered off, Vanai stood stock-still, as if a mage
    had suddenly made her into marble. I know what I have to do. The realiza-
    tion held an almost mystical clarity and certainty.
     But it would be wrong. Brivibas's sleep-sodden voice sounded inside her
    head.
     "I don't care," she said aloud, as if her grandfather were there to argue
    with her. It wasn't quite true. But she knew what was more important to
    her, and what less. If she could win the one, what did the other matter?
     In that house, finding paper and pen was a matter of a moment. She
    knew what she wanted to say, and said it. The purity of the Kaunian she
    used would have brought a nod of approval from her grandfather, regard-
    less of what he thought of certain other aspects of the note.
     After she'd folded the paper on herself and sealed it with wax and her
    grandfather's seal, she threw on a cloak and carried the note to the
    Forthwegian barrister's home where the Algarvians made their head-
    quarters in Oyngestun. She left it there, with a sergeant who leered at her
    and ran a red, red tongue over his lips. She fled.
     "Still a whore for the redheads,',' a: Kaunian woman hissed at her. She
    hung her head and hurried back to her home. There she waited, and
    waited, and waited. Nothing out of the ordinary happened the next day,
    or the day after that. Each morning, before first light, Brivibas shambled
    off to labor for the Algarvians. Each morning, he was more a crumbling
    ruin of the man he had been.
     In the rm'ddle of the afternoon on the third day, the knock Vanai had
    been waiting for, the knock she recognized, came. She started, spilling
    some of the peas she'd been putting into water to soak. Even though
    she'd been waiting for that knock, she moved toward the door with the
    slow, reluctant steps she might have taken in a bad dream. ff I don't answer,
    he will think I am not at home, and go away, went through her mind. But so
    did another thought; if I don't answer, my grandfather will surely die.
     She opened the door. Major Spinello stood there, as she'd known he
    would. He bowed to her. I greet you, my lady Vanal. May I come in?"
     His formality surprised her. Had he got the note? He had. Oh, he had.

    




    INTo THE DARKNESS
    
    he
    on
     t
    
    age
    iza-
    
    her
    
                                       gue
                                      nt to
                                      tter?
                                      . She
                                      n she
    
    gard-
    
    d her
    o the
    head-
    at her
    
     r. She
    d, and
     t day,
      led
    nibling;
    
     al had
    spilling
    though
    ith the
    
    answer,
    But so
    
    own he
    me in?"
    he had.
                "J
    
 She saw it in his eyes. "Aye," she whispered, and stood aside to let him.
     He closed and barred the door. That done, he turned to her. "Did you
     know what you were saying when you said you would do anything to
     keep your worthless old grandfather from going off and doing what he
     should have been doing this past year and more?" he asked.
     "Aye," Vanal whispered again, even lower this time. She looked at the
    floor to keep from looking at Spinello. Again to her surprise, he waited
    to see if she would say more. After a moment, she did: "He is all I have."
     "Not all." The Algarvian shook his head. "Oh, no, my dear, not all."
    He stretched out a hand and undid the three wooden toggles that closed
    the neck of her tunic, then reached down to the hem and pulled it up
    over her head. Hating him, hating herself more, she raised her anus to
    help him. He looked at her for what felt like forever. "Brivibas is very far
    from all you have." He reached out again. This time, his hands stroked
    bare flesh.
     He surprised her once more by not mauling her. His touch was
    knowing, assured. Had she freely chosen him, she might - she thought
    she would - have enjoyed it. As things were, she stood still and endured.
     "To your bedchamber, then," he said after a while. Vanai nodded,
    thinking it would be easier there than on the floor, where she'd more
    than half expected him to drag her down. Pausing only to pick up her
    tunic, she took him where he wanted to go.
     The bed would be narrow for two. The bed was none too wide for
    her alone. She waited beside it.- If he wanted her out of her trousers, he
    would have to take her out of them. He did, and seemed to enjoy the
    doing. Then, amazingly fast, he undressed himself She looked away. She
    knew how a man was made. She did not want to be rerm'nded.

    




     But even a brief glimpse reminded her that Algarvians were made
    rather differently - or made themselves rather differently. She'd known
    of their ritual mutilation, a custom that had persisted since ancient days.
    Till now, she'd never imagined it would matter to her.
     "Lie down," Spinello said, and Vanai obeyed. He lay beside her. "It
    gives a man more pleasure if a woman takes pleasure, too," he remarked,
    and did his best with hands and mouth to give her some. When he told
    her to do something, she did it, and tried not to think about what she did.
    Otherwise, as she had in the hall, she endured.
     When his tongue began to probe her secrets, she twisted away toward
    
    i

    




    568
    
    Harry Turtledove
    
    the wall. "Come back," he said. "If you will not kindle, you will not. But
    the wetter you are, the less it will hurt."
     "A considerate ravisher," Vanal said through clenched teeth.
     Spinello laughed. "But of course." Presently, he went into her. "Ali,"
    he murmured a moment later, discovering no one had been there before
    him. "It tvill hurt, some." He pushed forward. It did hurt. Vanal bit down
    on the inside of her lip. She tasted blood: blood to match the blood the
    Algarvian was drawing down below. She closed her eyes and tried to
    ignore his weight on her.
     He grunted and quivered and pulled out. That hurt, too. Vanal
    tolerated it, though, because it meant this was finally over. "My grand-
    father-" she began.
     Major Spinello laughed again. "You know what you did this for, don't
    you?" he said. "Aye, a bargain: the wordy old bugger can come home
    and stay home - for as long as you keep giving me what I want, too. Do
    we understand each other, my dear?"
     Vanal twisted toward the wall once more. "Aye," she said, huddling
    into a ball. Of course once would not be enough to suit him. She should
    have known that. She supposed she had known it, even if she'd hoped
    ... But what good was hope? She listened to him dress. She listened to
    him leave. "orefor the redheads, the Kauman woman had called her. It
    hadn't been true then. It was now. Vanal wept, not that weeping helped.
    
    Winter on the island of Obuda brought endless
    
    driving rainst s
    
    roaring off the Bothman Ocean. Istvan hadn't cared for them whe e
    could take shelter in his barracks. He honestly preferred blizzards. He
    knew how to get around on snow. Anyone who grew up in a
    Gyongyosian valley knew everything he needed to know about snow.
     Rain was a different business. Bad enough in the barracks - far worse
    when the only shelter he had was a hole in the ground. His cape still shed
    some water. That meant he was only soaked, not drenched. He slept very
    little, and that badly. Being soaked was only part of it. The other part was -
    a healthy fear that some sneaking Kuusaman would get through the lines
    and slit his throat so he'd die without ever waking. It wasn't an idle fear,
    Those little bastards could slip through cracks in the defenses a weasel
    couldn't use.
    
     He peered down the side of Mt. Sorong toward the Kuusaman

    




    INTo THE DARKNESS
    
    569
    
    trenches and holes. He couldn't see very far through the trees and rain,
    but that didn't stop him from being wary. He kept his stick close by him
    every moment, awake or asleep. He also had a stout knife on his belt. In
    weather like this, the knife might do him more good than the stick.
    Beams couldn't carry far through driving rain.
     Squelching noises behind him made him whirl - no telling from what
    direction a Kuusaman rmight come. But that big, tawny-bearded trooper
    was no Kaunian. "What now, Szonyl?" Istvan asked.
     "Still here," Szonyi said.
     "Oh, aye, still here," Istvan agreed. "The stars must hate us, don't you
    think? If they didn't, we'd be somewhere else. Of course" - he paused
    meditatively - "they might choose to send us somewhere worse."
     "And how would they do that?" the younger soldier demanded. "I
    don't think there is a worse place than this."
     "Put it that way and you may be right," Istvan said. "But you may be
    wrong, too." He wasn't sure how, but he'd seen enough bad to have a
    strong suspicion worse always waited around the corner. His stomach
    growled, reminding him bad was still bad. "What have you got in the
    way of food?" he asked Szonyi.
     "Not much, I'm afraid," Szonyi answered, so regretfully that Istvan
    suspected he had more than he was admitting. The youngster was turn-
    ing into a veteran, all right. But, short of searching his pockets and pack,'
    Istvan couldn't make a liar of him. He wasn't desperate enough to do
    that, not yet. And maybe Szonyl wasn't lying, too, for he said, "Maybe
    we ought to raid the slanteyes again."
     "Aye, maybe we should," Istvan said. "They aren't a proper warrior
    race, not even close - they think soldiers have to have full bellies to fight
    well. If we spent a quarter of the trouble on provisioning our men as they
    do, we'd be too fat to fight at all." Rain dripped from the hood of his
    cape down on to his nose. "Go ahead, tell me I'm wrong."
     "Can't do it," Szonyi said. "Here's one, though: if they aren't a war-
    rior race and we are, how come we haven't kicked 'em off Obuda once
    and for all?"
     Istvan opened his mouth, then abruptly closed it again. That was a
    good question, such a good question that a man could break teeth on it
    if he was unwary enough to bite down hard. At last, Istvan said, "The
    stars know," which was undoubtedly true and which also undoubtedly

    




    570
    
    Harry Turtledove
    
    did not come close to answering the question. He took the talk back in
    the direction it had gone before: "What do you say we slide down the
    hill and see if we can knock over a couple of Kuusamans? They'll have
    more food than we do - you can bet on that."
      "Aye," Szonyi said. "They couldn't very well have less, could they?"
     "I hope not, for their sake," Istvan said. "Come to think of it, I hope
    not for our sake, too." He slung his stick on his back and pulled his knife
    from its sheath. "Come on." I am going to risk my lifefor no better reason than
    filling my belly, he thought as he crawled out of his shelter and down the
    mountainside. Then he wondered if there could ever be any better reason
    than filling his belly.
     He moved as silently as he could. The drumming rain helped muffle
    any sounds he did make. It also helped hide him from the Kuusamans'
    narrow eyes. At the same time, though, it muffled their noises and helped
    conceal them from him. He hadn't stayed alive as long as he had by being
    careless. Szonyi rMight have been a shadow behind him. If bad luck didn't
    kill the youngster, he would make a fine soldier.
     The rain came down harder and harder, so that Istvan could see only
    a few yards in front of him. Spring wasn't that far away; before long, the
    storms would ease. Istvan had seen it happen before. He knew it would
    happen again. But it hadn't happened yet, and the storm didn't seem to
    think it ever would.
     He crawled past the stinking, sodden corpse of a Gyongyosian trooper
    - no Kuusaman born had ever had hair that shade of yellow. The corpse
    warned him he was nearing the Kuusaman line. It also warned him he
    might not come back.
     No sooner had that unpleasant thought crossed his rmind than eggs
    started dropping out of the sky on and around the Kuusaman position.
    He looked up, but of course the low, thick gray clouds hid the dragons
    that carried the eggs. He hoped they were Gyongyosian, but they might
    almost as readily have had Kuusamans niding them. Gyongyosian dragom
    had dropped eggs on their own footsoldiers before; he did not think die
    enemy irrimune from such mischances.
     He flattened himself out on the ground. Bursts of energy near hini
    tried to pick him up and throw him away. He clung to the bushes for A
    he was worth.
    
      A Kuusaman, either wild with panic or more likely caught away from

    




    INTo THE DARKNEss
    
    i
    
    shelter and running in search of some, tripped over one of his legs and
    crashed to the ground. That was the first either of them knew of the
    other's presence. They both cried out. Istvan's knife rose and fell. The
    Kuusaman cried out again, this time in anguish. Istvan drove the knife
    into his throat. His cn'es cut off. He thrashed for a couple of minutes, ever
    more weakly, they lay still.
     Istvan let out a rasping sigh of relief and went through the fellow's
    pockets and pack. He found hard bread, smoked and salted salmon - a
    Kuusaman specialty - and dnied apples and pears. The dead soldier's can-
    teen proved to hold apple brandy, something else of which the
    Kuusamans were inordinately fond. Istvan took a nip. He sighed with
    pleasure as fire ran down his throat.
     "Szonyi?" he called in a low voice. When he got no answer, he called
    again, louder this time. He could have shouted and not been heard far in
    the din of bursting eggs.
     He peered around. The only company he had was the dead
    Kuusaman. He cursed under his breath. He couldn't go back up Mt.
    Sorong without knowing what had happened to his comrade. One war-
    rior did not abandon another on the field. The stars would not shine for
    any man who did so base a thing as that.
     "Szonyi?" Istvan called once more.
     This time, he got an answer: "Aye?" Szonyi came through the curtain
    of rain toward him. The youngster had a smile on his face and a
    Kuusaman canteen in his hand. "I nailed one of the little whoresons," he
    said. "How about you?"
     "This fellow here won't need his supper any more, so I may as wen eat
    it for him," Istvan said, which drew a laugh from Szonyi. Istvan went on,
    "Now that we've got a little food, let's slide back up the side of the
    mountain."
     "I suppose so." Szonyi didn't sound happy about it. "If we do, though,
    we'll have to share it with people who didn't get any of their own."
     "And nobody has ever shared with you?" Istvan asked. Szonyi hung
    his head. Istvan slapped him on the shoulder. "Come on. We won't
    starve for a while longer, anyhow, even if we do have to share."
     With eggs still falling almost at random, getting back up Mt. Sorong
    was easier than going down the sloping side of the low mountain had
    been. The Gyongyosian soldiers could make more noise, for with the

    




    wwww"11-
    
    572
    
    Harry Turtledove
    
    bursting eggs it went largely unnoticed. But, just before they reached
    their own line, a sharp challenge rang out: "Halt! Who goes there?"
     Istvan was glad to hear that challenge. If he couldn't sneak up on his
    comrades, maybe the Kuusamans couldn't, either. He gave his own name
    and Szonyi's, then added, "Is that you, Kim?"
     "Aye." The mage's apprentice sounded reluctant to admit it. He
    returned to soldierly formality: "Advance and be recognized."
     "Here we come," Istvan said. "Don't start blazing at us now, or we
    won't give you any of the Kuusaman treats we've brought back." Szonyi
    sent him a reproachful look. He pretended not to see it. With the rain,
    the pretense was easy enough.
     Raindrops dappled the lenses of Kim's spectacles as he too showed
    himself "Salmon?" he asked hopefully. When he had the chance, he ate
    like a dragon, and his scrawny carcass never put on an ounce. When he
    couldn't eat so much as he wanted, he got skinnier still.
     "Aye, salmon, and bread and fruit, too. And that applejack the
    slanteyes brew," Istvan said. "Szonyi and I have put a dent in what we
    got of that, but you can have a slug or two, and some of the food to go
    with it."
     What would have been plenty for two men wasn't quite enough for
    three, but even Szonyi didn't complain out loud. The two canteens held
    enough apple brandy to make complaint seem pointless to all three
    Gyongyosians. Presently, Szonyi landed back against the trunk of a tree
    and asked, "How did you spot us, Kun? You can't be able to see much
    in the rain with your spectacles, and I don't think we made any noise.
    Even if we did, the racket down the hill should have covered it."
     "I have my methods," Kun said, and said no more.
     His smile was so superior, Istvan wanted to kick him in the teeth.
    "Some fifth-rank magical trick, I don't doubt," he growled. "Would it
    have spotted Kuusamans, too? Tell me the truth, by the stars. Our necks
    may ride on what you know and what you don't."
     "Unless they're specially warded, it would," Kun answered. "It spies
    men moving forward toward me."
     It didn't spy men moving toward him from higher up Mt. Sorong, as
    a crashing in the brush proved a moment later. Istvan stared in astonish-
    ment at the apparition before him: an officer with the large six-pointed
    star of a major on each side of the collar of a uniform tunic surprisingly

    




    INTo THE DARKNESS
    
    -in
    573
    
    clean and fresh. He couldn't have been living in that tunic for weeks, as
    Istvan had in his.
     Istvan and Szonyi saluted without rising. Despite Kun's assurances,
    istvan didn't know the Kuusamans hadn't sneaked a sniper somewhere
    close. He noticed Kun didn't spring to his feet, either. The major
    returned the salutes, then said, "Those goat-bearded lackwits said Istvan's
    unit was somewhere around these parts. They had no sure notion where.
    Do you know of it? Am I close to it?"
     "Sir-" Now, cautiously, Istvan did rise. "Sir, I am Istvan."
     "A common soldier?" The major's eyes got wide. "By the way they
    spoke of you farther up the hill, I expected a captain." He shrugged.
    "Well, no matter. Gather your warriors, Istvan, however many they be,
    and accompany me to the shipping that awaits. In this beastly weather,
    we need fear no Kuusaman dragons."
     "Shipping, sir?" Now Istvan was the one taken by surprise.
     "Aye," the major said impatiently. "We are transferring certain units
    back to the mainland, for purposes I need not discuss. Yours is among
    them; folk spoke highly of its fighting qualities. Now show me they were
    right."
     Numbly, Istvan obeyed. I'm escaping Obuda, he thought. The stars be
    prat . sed. I'm escaping Obuda.
    
    . The sun shone blindingly on the snow-covered fields surrounding the
    village of Zossen. The glare did nothing to ease Garivald's hangover. But
    he bore the pain more readily than he would have during the tail end of
    most winters. He'd spent less time drunk this season than in any winter
    since he'd started shaving.
     He shook his head, even though it hurt. He'd spent less time drunk on
    1pirits this past winter than any since he'd become a man. The rest of the
    time, though, he'd been drunk on words.
     He glanced at the sun out of the comer of his eye. It climbed higher
    in the north every day. Spring wasn't far away. The snow would melt,
    the ground would turn to muck, and, when the muck grew firm enough,
    it would be planting time. Most years, he'd looked forward to that. Not
    now. He'd have to work hard for a while. The more he worked, the less
    'time he would have to make songs.
    ~? I never knew I could, he thought, and then, automatically, made a

    




    574
    
    Harry Turtledove
    
    couplet of it: I never knew it could be so good. He felt like a middle-aged man
    who'd never had a woman till he married a young, beautiful, passionate
    bn*de: he was doing his best to make up for all the time he'd gone with-
    out.
     Already, the villagers of Zossen sang his version of the now sacrificed
    captive's song in preference to the one the luckless convict had known.
    They sang a couple of other songs of his, too, one his own try at a love
    song and the other an effort at putting into words what being cooped up
    through a longer winter in southern Unkerlant was like.
     He wondered if he could make a song about what being worked to
    death most of the year felt Eke. No sooner had he wondered than words
    started lining up in neat rows inside his head, as if they were soldiers tak-
    ing their formation at an officer's command. Even so, he wondered if that
    song would be worth making. Everybody already understood everything
    there was to understand about working too much, understood it in the
    head and the heart and the small of the back, too. Songs were better when
    they told you something you didn't already know.
     He took a couple of steps, his boots crunching on crusted snow. Then
    he stopped again, a thoughtful expression on his face. He spoke the idea
    aloud. That helped him hold it in his mind: I wonder if I could make a
    song that told people something they already know as well as the taste of
    black bread but made them think of something different, something
    they'd never thought of before."
     That would be something special, he thought. A song like that would lastf6r,;
    ever. He kicked at the snow, sending little clumps of it flying. Now he
    would be thinking about that to the exclusion of everything else. He saw
    it was a thing that rmight be done, but had no idea how to go about it.
    He wished he knew more. He had no formal training in music or song-
    making. He had no formal training in anything. He'd learned how to
    farm by watching his father, not by having a schoolmaster beat lessons
    
    A4pr
    
 much time in the company of his wife and son and daughter and animals
     in their company whether he wanted to be or not, for the most
    
     He couldn't find much, even on the outskirts of Zossen. Here
    Waddo, waviriv his arms and hearing down on him like a behemoth in

    




    INTo THE DARKNESS
    
    575
    
    rut. A rhyme flew out of Gari'vald's head, never to return. He glowered
    at the village firstman. "What is it now, Waddo? Whatever it is, couldn't
    it have waited?"
     He was, perhaps, lucky. Waddo was so full of himself, he paid no
    Attention to anything Ganivald. said. "Have you heard?" he demanded.
    "Powers above, have you heard?" Then he shook his head. "No, of
    course you haven't heard, and I'm an idiot. How could you have heard?
    I just got it off the crystal myself."
    
     "Why don't you back up and start from the beginning?" Ganivald
    asked. Whatever Waddo had heard had upset him beyond the mean.
     "Aye, I'll do that," the firstman said, nodding. "What I heard is, the
    lousy, stinking Algarvians have gone and invaded Yanina, that's what I
    heard. King Swernmel. is hopping mad about it, too. He's calling it a
    breach that will not stand, and he's moving soldiers to the border with
    Yanina."
     "Why?" Ganivald wondered. "From everything I've heard about
    Yam*na" - he hadn't heard much, but had no intention of admitting it -
    "Algarve is welcome to the place. People with pompoms on their shoes?"
    He shook his head. "I don't know about you, but I don't want anything
    to do with 'em. "
     "You don't understand," Waddo said, which was likely to be true.
    "Yanina borders Algarve, right? And Yanina borders Unkerlant, too,
    right? If the redheads march into Yanina, what's the next thing they're
    going to do?"
     "Catch the clap from all the loose Yaninan women," Garivald
    answered, "and maybe from the loose Yaninan men, too, if half the
    stories they tell about them are true."
     Waddo exhaled in half scandalized exasperation. "That's not what I
    meant," he said, "and it's not what his Majesty meant, either." His chest
    swelled with self-importance; he'd heard King Swernmel with his own
    'em. "The next thing the Algarvians are going to do is keep night on
    marching, straight on into Unkerlant, and we aren't going to let that
    app n. 11
    
     impressers will be coming, Garivald thought. If Unkerlant got into a fight
    with Algarve, she'd need all the men she could find. The Six Years' War
    had written out that lesson in letters of blood. Aside from that, though .
     "Zossen's a long way from the border with Yanina," he said. "I don't

    




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    Harry Turtledove
    
    see how it's going to matter to us, any more than the war with Zuwayza
    did. just another loud noise in a room far away."
     "It's an insult to the whole kingdom, that's what it is," Waddo said,
    no doubt echoing the angry voice he'd heard in the crystal. "We won't
    stand for it. We won't take it lying down."
     "What will we do, then?" Garivald asked reasonably. "Sit on a bench?
    That's about the only thing left for us, wouldn't you say?"
     "You're being absurd," the firstman said, though Garivald wasn't the
    one who'd used the figures of speech. "As soon as the ground is dry
    enough, we're going to have to drive the Algarvians out of there."
    
     "Aye, that sounds efficient - if we can do it," Ganivald said. "Can we
    do it, do you think?"
     "His Majesty says we can. His Majesty says we will," Waddo said.
    "Who am I to argue with his Majesty? He knows more about the busi-
    ness than I do." He fixed Garivald with a sour stare. "And, before your
    mouth runs away with you again, he knows more about this business than
    you do, too."
     "Well, that's likely so," Ganivald admitted. "But talk with some of the
    older men here, Waddo. See how they like the idea of another war with
    the redheads."
     "Maybe I will," said Waddo, who, like Garivald, was too young to
    have fought in the Six Years' War. The firstman went on, "But whether
    they like it or not doesn't matter. If King Swernmel says we're at war with
    Algarve, why then, by the powers above, we're at war with Algarve. And
    if we're at war with Algarve, we'd better lick the redheads, or else theyll
    lick us. Isn't that right?"
     "Aye, it is," Garivald said. The only other choice was going to war
    against King Swernmel. Garivald was old enough to remember the
    Twinkings War. He didn't see how fighting Algarve could be worse than
    civil war in Unkerlant. After what Swernmel ended up doing to Kyot, he
    didn't see how any other challenger for the throne would dare try unseat-
    ing the king, either.
     "There you have it, then," Waddo said. "What his Majesty tells us to
    do, we'll do, and that's all there is to it."
     Ganivald couldn't argue with that, either. Something else occurred to
    him: "How did the Algarvians go marching into Yanmajust like that,
    Yanina's down south, same as we are. The going can't be easy there. Frn

    




    e      i
    
    INTo THE DARKNESS
    
    577
    
    not a king and I'm not a marshal, but I wouldn't want to go invading any-
    body at this time of year." He waved at the snowdrifts coven' ng the fields.
    I "I don't know anything about that," said Waddo, who plainly hadn't
    thought about it, either. "King Swernmel didn't say how the cursed red-
    heads did it. He just said that they did it. How doesn't matter. The king
    wouldn't lie to us."
     "y not? Ganivald wondered. He would have spoken that thought
    aloud with Armore. He might have spoken it aloud with Dagulf.
    Speaking to his wife or his trusted ffiend was one thing. Speaking to the
    firstman was something else again. Waddo was more Swemmel's man
    than a proper villager.
     "I'm off to tell some others now," Waddo said. "You were the first
    man I saw, Garivald, so you were the first to get the news. But everyone
    in Zossen needs to hear." Off he went, kicking up snow from the path
    with each step he took.
     Some men of Gan'vald's acquaintance would have gone with him, to
    spread the news farther and faster. Ganivald liked his gossip as well as any
    man. Come to that, few old wives in Zossen liked gossip any better. But
    he did not follow Waddo. For one thing, this wasn't gossip, or not exactly
    gossip: it was too big. He couldn't think of anything much bigger than
    news of impending war. And, for another, he didn't like Waddo well
    enough to help him with anything he didn't have to.
     Garivald stared east across the fields. He was glad a couple of hundred
    miles separated his village from Yanina's western border. The Algarvians
    hadn't come this far during the Six Years' War, nor anywhere close. That
    made it a good bet they wouldn't come so far this time, either.
     Then he kicked up snow himself. That the war wouldn't come to
    Zossen didn't mean he wouldn't go to the war, wherever it ended up
    ~being fought. He looked back toward Waddo's two-story house and
    silently cursed the crystal the firstman had there. Evading the impressers
    would be much harder with that crystal here. They could report to
    Cottbus, get their orders for however many men the army required, and
    call for whatever help they needed, all right away.
    
     He imagined an Unkerlanter dragon flying over the woods outside the
    village, dropping eggs on them to flush out the recalcitrants less than eager
    to fight in King Swernmel's army. Impressers would do that sort of thing
    in a heartbeat - assurming they had hearts, which struck Ganivald as unlike .

    




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    Harry Turtledove
    
     Several lines casting scorn on impressers, inspectors, and everyone
    from Cottbus sprang into his mind, all unbidden. The whole village
    would laugh if he started singing such a song: the whole village except
    Waddo and the guards who kept the captives in the gaol cell from escap-
    ing. Ganivald did not think they would be the least bit amused.
     Reluctantly, he pushed his thoughts away from that sort of song. He
    could make it, aye. He could do any number of things he would be better
    off not doing. Life in Zossen was sometimes hard. That didn't mean he
    had to go looking for ways to make it harder.
     Behind him, he heard shouts of surprise. Those were the guards.
    Waddo must have given them the news. Garivald shook his head. He
    wouldn't have shared gossip of any sort with the guards. It wasn't as if
    they were villagers. Ganivald shook his head again. Waddo had no sense
    of proportion.
    
     "This is Patras," Captain Galafrone said as the ley-line caravan sighed
    to a stop. "From here on, boys, we don't nide any more. From here on,
    we march." He looked as if he relished the prospect. Tealdo, who was
    something less than half his captain's age, didn't.
     Neither did Tealdo's friend Trasone. "I've already done enough
    marching to last me, thank you kindly," he whispered.
     "It's not like we won't be doing more anyhow soon enough," Tealdo
    said. Like any soldier worth his pay, he was always ready to complain.
     "What?" Trasone raised a gingery eyebrow. "You don't figure us
    being here will scare King Swernmel out of gobbling up Yanina, the way
    he was going to do? I figure one look at you would be enough to make
    every Unkerlanter in the world run off screarruing for his mother."
     "Come on, let's go," Galafrone said. "We want to impress Colo
    Ombruno, right?" He pretended not to hear the jeers that rang throu
    the car, continuing, "And some of the Yaninan women are supposed to
    be pretty cursed good-looking, too. I don't know about you boys, but I
    don't want 'em laughing at me on account of I can't remember which is
    my left foot and which is my night when I'm marching."
     That put matters in a different light. Tealdo checked to make sure
    tunic was perfectly straight and every pleat in his kilt knife-sharp. Trasone
    combed his mustache, not wanting a single hair out of place. Even
    Sergeant Panfilo set his hat on his head at a jauntier angle, and Tealdo

    




    INTo THE DAPKNESS
    
    579
    
    would have sworn that only a blind woman, or one severely short of cash,
    could take the least interest in Panfilo.
     "Get moving, you lousy lugs," Panfilo rumbled as he surged to his
    feet. "Let's show these foreign doxies what real men look like."
     A raw breeze blew through the streets of Patras. Tealdo was glad of the
    long, thick wool socks he wore, and would have been gladder had they
    been thicker and longer. Not far from the platform on which he was
    debarking, a Yarfinan band played a vaguely familiar tune. After a while,
    he recognized it as the Algarvian royal hymn. "I've never heard it with
    bagpipes before," he murmured to Trasone.
     "I hope I never do again," his friend whispered back.
     Yaninans lined the route along which the Algarvian soldiers marched.
    Some of them held up signs in badly spelled, ungrammatical Algarvian.
    One said, WELL COME LIBERATATORS! Another proclaimed,
    DEETH FOR UNKERLANT! More signs and placards were in
    Yaninan, whose very characters were strange to Tealdo. For an he knew,
    they might have been advertising sausage or patent medicine or wishing
    that he and his countrymen might come down with a social disease.
     But the Yaninans cheered too lustily to let him believe that. Set against
    Algarvians, they were short and wiry. The men favored mustaches that
    were thick and bushy rather than waxed to spiked perfection, as was the
    Algarvian, ideal. Some of the older women had fairly respectable mus-
    taches, too, which was much less common in Tealdo's homeland.
     He paid more attention to the young women. Like the men, they
    mostly had olive complexions and dark hair and eyes. Their features were
    sharply carved: wide foreheads; strong cheekbones and noses; narrow,
    pointed chins. They painted their lips red as blood.
     "I've seen worse," he said to Trasone, in a tone another man might
    have used to judge horseflesh.
     "Oh, aye," Trasone agreed. "And if we go into Unkerlant, you'll see
    worse again. Think of Forthwegian women, only more so."
     Tealdo thought about it. He didn't like what he was thinking. "Best
    arpment for peace I've heard yet," he said.
     Trasone snickered, which brought Sergeant Panfilo's wrath down on
    his head. "Silence in the ranks, curse you!" Panfilo growled.
     Along with the rest of the brigade, Colonel Ombruno's regiment
    assembled in front of King Tsavellas's palace, a sprawling edifice whose

    




    580
    
    Harry Turtledove
    
    onion domes painted in swirling patterns and bright colors loudly pro-
    claimed what a foreign land this was. Algarvian banners - red, white, and
    green - flew alongside those of Yanina, which were simply red on white.
     Another band struck up something vaguely resembling a tune. Tealdo
    supposed it was the Yaninan royal hymn, for a man in a domed crown
    and robes of scarlet and ermine ascended to a rostrum while the locals
    lining the edge of the plaza chorused, "Tsavellas! Tsavellas!"
     King Tsavellas raised a hand. Had King Mezentio used such a gesture,
    he would have got silence. Tsavellas got more noise: Yaninans were any-
    thing but an orderly.folk. The king waited. Slowly, very slowly, quiet
    came. Into it, Tsavellas spoke in accented but understandable Algarvian:
    "I welcome you brave men from the east, who will help shield my small
    kingdom from the madness of my other neighbor." Then he said some-
    thing - probably the same thing - in Yaninan. His subjects cheered. He
    waved to them and stepped down.
     An Algarvian took his place. "That's probably our minister here,"
    Tealdo said to Trasone, who nodded. Sure enough, the Algarvian spoke
    first not to the soldiers from his kingdom but to the assembled people of
    Patras in what sounded like fluent Yaninan. They cheered him with as
    much enthusiasm as they'd given their own sovereign.
     Then he looked out over the ranks of Algarvian soldiers. "You are
    here for'a reason, men," he told them. "King Tsavellas invited you,
    begged King Mezentio to allow you, to enter Yanina to prove to King
    Swernmel of Unkerlant that we are determined to defend the small
    against the large. just as the Kaunian kingdoms oppressed us when we
    were weak, so Unkerlant sought to oppress Yanina. But we are not weak
    now, and we shall not let our neighbors be molested. Men of Algarve, do
    I speak the truth?"
     "Aye!" the Algarvian soldiers shouted. Some of them waved their hats.
    Some scaled their hats through the air. Tealdo waved his. However
    tempted he might have been to throw it, he refrained. Sergeant Panfilo's
    comments would surely have been colorful, but might also have been
    imperfectly appreciative.
     Two flagbearers went up on the rostrum. One held an Algarvian ban-
    ner, the other a Yaninan. The flags blew in the breeze side by side.
     "About-turn!" Colonel Ombruno called to his regiment. Along with
    his comrades, Tealdo spun on his heel. The regiment led the brigade out

    




    INTo THE DARKNESS
    
    581
    
    of the square. After one wrong turn - fortunately, out of sight of King
    Tsavellas and the Algarvian minister - they made their way to the bar-
    racks where they would spend the night.
     Surrounding the barracks like toadstools were tents full of Yaninan
    soldiers. "Uh-oh," Tealdo said. "I don't much like that. We're stealing
    their beds. They won't love us for it."
     He liked it even less the next morning, when he woke up with bug
    bites. What the Yaninans served up for breakfast wasn't very good.
    Tealdo had expected as much. Captain Galaftone had warned the whole
    company to expect as much. "Boys, they're long on cabbage and they're
    long on bread. You'll be bored, but you won't be hungry."
     Bored Tealdo certainly was, not that Algarvian army cooking was any-
    thing to send a noble connoisseur into flights of ecstasy. But Tealdo also
    ended up hungry, because the Yaninan cooks hadn't done up enough to
    fiR the bellies of their new Algarvian allies. Share and share alike was the
    rule. A few bites of black bread and not enough cabbage-and-beet soup
    made Tealdo's stomach rumble and growl as if angry wild things dwelt
    there.
     I wonder what the Yaninans are eating," he said as he finished the
    meager meal - not that finishing it took long. "I wonder if the poor
    whoresons are eating anything."
     "Aye. This isn't good." Trasone shook his head. Being a veteran, he
    knew how important questions of supply were. "If the Yaninans can't do
    a proper job of feeding troops in their own capital, how will they man-
    age out in the field."
     "We'll find out, won't we?" Tealdc, said. "We'll pay the price of find-
    ing out, too."
     But Sergeant Panfilo shook his head. "It won't be as bad as that," he
    said. "Our supply services come along with us. Once we're stationed,
    once the fighting starts - if the fighting starts - they'll take care of us.
    Those boys can find a six-course supper hiding under dead leaves."
     "Well, that's true enough," Tealdo said, somewhat reassured. It wasn't
    quite so - Panfilo did exaggerate, but not by much. "Powers above pity
    the poor Yaninans, though. They haven't got much, and they don't
    know how to move what they do have."
     "Come on, boys," Captain Galafrone called. "Lovely as this place is,
    we can't hang around here any more. We've got to go out and see the
    
    t

    




    582
    
    Harry Turtledove
    
    big, wide world - or at least the little, narrow chunk of it that belongs to
    Yanina."
     Tealdo did more really hard marching that day than in any other he
    could remember. He'd marched farther a good many times, especially in
    the hectic fighting that led up to Valmiera's collapse. But Valmiera, like
    Algarve, had a decent network of paved roads. A man or a horse or a uni-
    corn or a behemoth could tramp over the cobblestones or gravel or slabs
    of slate at any season of the year.
     He'd come into Patras by ley-fine caravan, and hadn't had to worry
    about what the roads were like. The streets of King Tsavellas's capital
    were paved as well as those of any Algarvian town. The highway that led
    toward the west, toward the border with Unkerlant, was also well paved
    ... for the first few mi'les.
     About an hour after leaving the barracks behind, Tealdo and his com-
    rades also left the cobblestones behind. His feet plunged into cold mud.
    The first time he lifted one up out of the roadbed, a lot of the roadbed
    came with it. The second time he lifted one out, even more mud came
    along. He cursed in disgust.
     He wasn't the only one cursing, either. A brimstone cloud might have
    surrounded the company, the regiment, the entire brigade. "These are
    our allies?" somebody not far away from Tealdo bellowed. "Powers
    below eat them, the Unkerlanters can have them and welcome!" He was
    more than usually exercised, but then, when he'd picked up a foot, his
    boot hadn't come out of the muck with it.
     "Shut up!" Galaftone shouted. "You fools haven't got the faintest
    notion of what you're talking about. I fought against the Unkerlanters in
    the last war, along with your fathers - if you know who your fathers arc.
    You think this is bad, Unkerlant makes this look like Mad Duke
    Morando's pleasure gardens outside of Cotigoro. You'll find out."
     Algarvian soldiers obeyed orders. They kept marching, as best they
    could. That didn't mean they didn't speak their minds. The trooper
    who'd lost his boot spoke with great conviction: I don't care how lousy
    Unkerlant is. That still doesn't make this stinking place any formcating
    pleasure garden."
     On the Algarvians slogged. They came to their assigned,campsite long
    after nightfall. Tealdo was amazed they came to it at all. Ever since the
    
    cobbles stopped, he'd felt as if he were marching in place.

    




    INTo THE DARKNESS
    
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     The Yaninan cooks also seemed astonished the Algarvians reached the
    campsite. Again, they had something less than adequate rations for the
    brigade. Having gulped down what he was given, Tealdo started toward
    the west, toward Unkerlant. King Swernmel. was responsible for the
    dreadful day he'd put in, and for other dreadful days that no doubt lay
    ahead. As far as Tealdo was concerned, that meant Swernmel's subjects
    would pay. "Oh, how they'll pay," he muttered.
    
     "Come on, curse you!" Leudast shouted to the ordinary troopers of his
    squad. He enjoyed being a corporal, sure enough. Being a corporal meant
    he got to do the shouting instead of having sergeants and corporals shout
    at him. "We have to move faster, curse it. You think the lousy redheads
    are going to stand around waiting for you to get your thumbs out of your
    arses?"
     He left without the slightest twinge of regret the Forthwegian village
    in which his squad had been billeted. The locals hadn't given his com-
    rades and him any more trouble since the Unkerlanters blazed down the
    firstman and his wife, but the Forthwegians didn't love his countrymen,
    and they never would.
     Like rills and creeks and streams flowing together to form a great river,
    the Unkerlanter squads and companies that had been quartered on the
    countryside came together into regiments and brigades and divisions and
    flowed toward the east, toward the border with Algarvian-held
    Forthweg. Leudast smiled and nodded approval at every squadron of
    horsemen and unicom-riders who kicked up dust on the newly dry roads.
    He felt like cheering at every section of behemoths he saw, and wished
    there were more of them to see.
     In the fields between the roads, Forthwegian peasants plowed and
    planted as they had done for centuries since largely displacing the isolated
    Kaunians left behind when the Algarvians swept up from the south and
    wrecked the Kaunian Empire. The Forthwegian peasants did their best to
    ignore the Unkerlanter soldiers moving along the roads, just as, farther
    east, Forthwegian peasants were doubtless doing their best to ignore the
    Algarvian soldiers moving along the roads.
     "They'll be planting back in my village about now, too," Leudast said
    to Sergeant Magnulf He smiffed, then sighed. "Nothing like spring air, is
    there? It even smells green, you know what I mean? - like you ought to

    




    584
    
    Harry Turtledove
    
    be able to grow crops from the smell without bothering with plowing
    and manuring and all that."
     "Don't I wish!" Magnulf rolled his eyes. "Village I came out of is a lot
    farther south - matter of fact, it's only a couple of days' walk this side of
    the Gifliom River, and on the other side of the Gifhorn they're Grelzers
    first and Unkerlanters only when they bother remembering the Union of
    Crowns. Liable to be snowing down there even now - and if it's not,
    people are still waiting for the mud to dry. Once it does, they'll work
    their arses off, too. None of this moonshine about growing.things with
    the air. "
     "I didn't say you really could," Leudast protested. "I just said it smelled
    like you could."
     Magnulf, like any sergeant worth his pay, was constitutionally unable
    to recognize a figure of speech. He could recognize a crude joke, though,
    and did, pointing to a band of Unkerlanter unicorns riding across a field
    a Forthwegian farmer had just finished plowing. "Haw, haw, haw! Now
    that miserable whoreson'll have to do it all over again. Haw, haw!"
     Leudast chuckled, too; a Forthwegian peasant's problems were none
    of his own. I wish those unicorns were behemoths, is what I wish," he
    said.
    
     "Aye, that'd be good," Magnulf agreed, laughing still. "Then he'd
    have bigger holes in the ground to worry about."
     That wasn't why Leudast wished he saw more behemoths. All through
    Algarve's victory over Forthweg, and then in her smashing wins against
    Valmiera and Jelgava, her behemoths had done more than their share of
    the damage. Everyone said so. The summer and autumn before, he'd
    spent a lot of time training against horses tricked out as behemoths. The
    more of the great beasts he saw with Unkerlanter crews atop them, the
    happier he'd be.
     He kept looking up into the sky, and cocking his head to one side to
    try to catch the harsh cries of dragons overhead. As with the behemoths,
    he saw and heard some, but not so many as he would have liked. When
    he remarked on that to Magnulf, the sergeant said, "Be thankful you
    don't see any flying out of the east. We're getting too bloody close to the
    border now. Here's hoping we've caught the redheads napping."
    
     "Aye, here's hoping," Leudast said in what he hoped wasn't too hol-
    low a voice. "Nobody else has managed to do that yet."

    




    INTo THE DARKNESS
    
    585
    
     Magnulf spat in the dirt. "They put one arrn in a tunic sleeve at a time,
    same as we do. Remember" - he planted an elbow in Leudast's ribs - "if
    they were as great as they think they are, they'd have won the Six Years'
    War. Am I right or am I wrong?"
     "You're night, Sergeant. Can't argue with that." Leudast tramped on,
    feeling a little happier. His back ached. His feet ached. He wished King
    Swernmel's impressers had never found his village. He'd spent a lot of
    time wishing that. He didn't know why. It never did any good.
     The regiment camped in the fields that night. That would give the
    Forthwegians; who farmed them more work to do come morning - work
    likely to be undone when more Unkerlanter soldiers came through head-
    ing east. Leudast lost no sleep over that, or over the provenance of the
    chunks of mutton and chicken in the cookpots. Leudast lost no sleep over
    anything. As soon as he helped Magnulf make sure the squad was safely
    settled, he rolled himself in his blanket and plunged into slumber almost
    at once. He did not expect to wake till the rising sun pried his eyelids
    open.
     But the first eggs fell out of the sky when morning twilight was barely
    beginning to stain the eastern horizon with gray. Now he heard dragons'
    cries, fierce and raucous. The beasts swooped low above the Unkerlanter
    encampment, dropping their eggs and then gaining height once more
    with thunderous wingbeats. Some came close enough to the ground to'
    flame before they flew higher. More flames sprang up from tents and
    wagons they set afire.
     Leudast seized his stick and started blazing at them, but the sky was still
    so dark, he had no good targets. Even with a good target, he knew a foot-
    soldier had to be lucky - had to be more than lucky - to bring down a
    dragon. He kept blazing anyhow. If he didn't, he had no chance at all to
    bring one down.
     An egg burst close by him, knocking him off his feet and rolling him
    along the ground like a pin in a game of sixteens. He knocked over a
    couple of other soldiers, too, just as a well-struck pin would have done,
    though not enough to gain a good score. They shouted and cursed, as he
    did. Men were screaming, too, at the top of their lungs.
     Some of those screams burst from the throats of wounded men. Others
    were shouts of anger or, more often, horrified astonishment: "The red-
    heads!" "The Algarvians!" "King Mezentio's men!"

    




    586
    
    Harry Turtledove
    
     They've got a lot of cursed nerve, hitting us first, Leudast thought. The
    ground shook beneath his feet as another egg burst nearby. We were sup-
    posed to hit themfirst, catch them by surprise.
    
     That hadn't happened. It wasn't going to happen, not now.
    Remembening how his officers said the Algarvians liked to fight, Leudast
    had a sudden nasty premonition of what was likely to happen next.
    "Prepare to receive attack from the east!" he shouted to his squad and
    anyone else who would listen. "The redheads will be hitting us with foot
    and cavalry and those stinking behemoths, too!"
     "Aye, that's the truth!" No one who knew Sergeant Magnulf could
    mistake his bellow. "That's what those cursed Algarvians think efficient
    fighting's all about. Now that the dragons have knocked us cockeyed,
    they'll send in the men on the ground to try and flatten us."
     Here and there in the madness - which did not cease, for Algarvian
    dragons kept on pounding the encampment - officers also tried to rally
    their men. But some officers were killed, some were hurt, and some, with
    action upon them, turned out to be worthless. Leudast watched one run
    for the west as fast as he could go.
     He had no time for more than one quick curse aimed at that captain's
    back. Then more eggs started falling on the tents. These were smaller
    than the ones the dragons carried, which meant the Algarvians had
    already got tossers over the border and into the part of Forthweg
    Unkerlant occupied. Leudast shook his head. No - the part of Forthweg
    Unkerlant had occupied.
     A wild shout came from sentries posted east of the camp: "Here they
    come!"
     "Come on, you whoresons!" Leudast yelled. "If we don't fight the
    redheads, they'll kill all of us." Even if his comrades did fight the
    Algarvians, King Mezentio's men were liable to kill them all. He chose
    not to dwell on that.
     Now, instead of reaching for his stick, he grabbed his shovel off his
    belt and dug frantically. He had no time to make a proper hole from
    which to fight, but a little scrape with the dirt he'd dug thrown up in
    front of it was better than nothing. He lay flat in the scrape, rested his
    stick on the dirt parapet, and waited for the Algarvians to get close
    enough to blaze.
     And then Colonel Roflanz, the regimental commander, shouted,

    




    is
    
    se
    
    INTo THE DARKNESS
    
    587
    
    "The attack must go on as ordered. Forward against the foe, men! King
    Swemmel and efficiency!"
     "No!" Leudast and Magnulf yelled it together. Both of them had seen
    enough combat to know Roflanz was asking to get himself slaughtered,
    and everyone who followed him, too. The men in their squad, or the two
    or three of them close enough to hear their corporal, held their places.
    But far more men followed Roflanz. He was their leader. How could
    they go wrong if they followed him?
     They found out. It did not take long. Algarvians on behemoths blazed
    them with heavy sticks at ranges from which they could not reply. Other
    behemoths bore light egg-tossers. Bursts of sorcerous energy flung
    Unkerlanter soldiers aside, broken and bleeding. And the behemoths
    themselves, armored against footsoldiers' weapons, lumbered forward
    and trampled down King Swernmel's men. The Algarvians swarmed into
    the holes tom in their ranks.
     Leudast almost started blazing at the first men he saw running back
     toward him. With the new-risen sun shining in his face, they were hardly
     more than silhouettes. His finger was already halfway into the blazing
     hole when he realized the men wore long tunics, not short tunics and
     kilts.
    
     "Fall back!" one of them shouted, stumbling past his position. "If you
     don't fall back, everything's lost. Powers above, if you do fall back, every-
     thing's lost, too." Away he went, at least as fast as the captain who had
     incontinently fled when Algarvian dragons started dropping eggs on the
     encamPment.
     Magnulf said, "If the redheads make us fall back, I'll do it. But I'm
     cursed if I'll run awayjust because some coward tells me to."
     "Aye, by the powers above," Leudast said. There - there ahead of him
     were men in kilts. He blazed at them. They went down. Maybe he'd hit
     one or two, maybe they were battlewise like him, and knew enough to
     make themselves smaller targets. Either way, he whooped. "We can stop
     the whoresons!"
    
      But the Algarvians, when they met steady resistance, did not try to
      overrun and overwhelm it, as any Unkerlanter force would have done.
      Instead, they flowed around it, and soon were blazing at Leudast and the
      otheT stQ'aaj Uyke_Aantets froin the flank as well as the front.
        "'We have to give way!" Magnulf shouted then. "If we don't, they'll

    




MET![
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    588
    
    Harry Turtledove
    
    get behind us in a minute, and then we're dead." When he retreated,
    Leudast went with him. Leudast didn't want to move back, but he didn't
    want to die, either. As far as he was concerned, for the moment survival
    and efficiency were one and the same.
    
     Count Sabrino whooped with glee. He whacked his dragon with the
    goad. The ueat, stupid beast screamed fury at him. But then it dove on
    the Unkerlanter column on the road outside of Eoforwic. The
    Unkerlanters started to scatter, but it was already too late. Sabrino's was
    not the only dragon falling out of the sky. His whole wing of dragonfliers
    plunged toward them.
     When he saw five or six Unkerlanters tightly bunched, Sabrino
    whacked the dragon again, in a different way. Flame burst from its jaws.
    He heard the soldiers shriek as he flew by just above their heads. He
    didn't whoop then. Savoring the enemy's anguish might have been all
    very well for the Algarvian chieftains who'd toppled the Kaunian Empire,
    but listening to footsoldiers burn brought combat to a level too personal
    for his taste.
     And then, off to the north, he spied a different sort of target, the sort
    of target of which dragonfliers usually but dreamt. For this campaign, the
    mages had given him a crystal attuned to his squadron and flight leaders.
    He spoke into it now: "Look, lads! Another Unkerlanter dragon fann.
    Shall we go pay them a visit?"
     "Aye!" That was Captain Domiziano, sounding as fierce as any
    Algarvian chieftain from the ancient days. "If Swernmel's men U411 give
    us presents, they can't be surprised when we take them."
     The whole wing swung toward the dragon farm. Sabrino laughed
    under his breath. The Unkerlanters had intended to take Algarve by sur-
    prise. They'd moved strong forces very close to the front. But King
    Mezentio had had plans of his own, and now the Unkerlanters found
    themselves on the receiving end of the surprise they'd intended to give.
     They weren't responding well, either, any more than Forthweg or
    Vahmiera orJelgava had when Mezentio's men struck them. There ahead,
    coming up fast, was a dragon farm whose dragons, on this second day of
    the attack, remained chained to the ground.
     With a great roar, Sabrino's dragon put on a burst of speed. Dragons
    had no sense of chivalry or fair play whatever. When they saw foes

    




    i i .               INTo THE DARKNESS         589
    
    ns
    
    helpless in the ground, all that filled their tiny minds was killing them.
    Sabrino's problem was not to urge his mount on, but to keep the dragon
    from flanfing too soon and from landing to rend the Unkerlanter beast
    with its talons as well as burning them from above.
     Unkerlanter fliers and keepers ran this way and that, trying to get a few
    dragons in the air either to oppose the Algarvians or simply to flee. They
    had little luck; Sabrino's wing flamed them with almost as much gusto as
    his dragons gave to destroying their winged, scaly counterparts.
     By the time the wing had made several passes above the dragon farm,
    it was as dreadful a shambles as Sabrino had ever seen. By then, his dragon
    could produce only little wheezes of flame. It still wanted to go back and
    do some more killing. Sabrino had to beat it savagely with the goad to
    get it to fly away from the Unkerlanter dragon farm. As long as it could
    see enemy dragons on the ground, it was ready to attack.
    I But, fortunately, it was, like any dragon, too stupid to own much in
    the way of a memory. After Sabrinc, had finally persuaded - and there was
    a splendid euphemism - it to leave the dragon farm, it flew on toward the
    east without a backwards glance. Sabrino, on the other hand, did look
    back, not for one more glimpse of the battered foe but to find out how
    the men and beasts of his wing had come through. He spied not a single
    hole in the formation. Pride filled him. The great force King Mezentio
    had built for revenge was perforrming exactly as its creator had intended.'
     Once Sabrino had made sure of that, he looked down to see how the
    fight on the ground was going. Pride filled him again. Here was the same
    pattern he'd seen in Valrmiera. Wherever the Unkerlanters tried to make
    a stand, the Algarvians either used behemoths to pound them into sub-
    mission with eggs and heavy sticks or went around them to strike from
    the side and rear as well as the front. And the Unkerlanters would have
    to retreat or surrender or die where they stood.
     Some - quite a few, in fact - chose to do just that. No one had ever
    said the Unkerlanters were cowards: no one who'd fought them in the
    Six Years' War, certainly. But many Valrmierans had been brave, too, and
    it hadn't helped them any. King Mezentio and his generals had out-
    thought them before they outfought them. The same drama looked to be
    unfolding on the plains of eastern Forthweg.
     Every once in a while, the Unkerlanters would hole up in a village or
    a natural strongpoint too tough to be easily taken. Then, again as in

    




    590
    
    Harry Turtledove
    
    Valmiera. and Jelgava, the dragons would come in, dropping eggs on the
    enemy, softening him up so the men on the ground could finish him off.
     When Sabrino's wing came spiraling down to land at a hastily set up
    farm in what had been, up till that morning, Unkerlanter-occupied
    Forthweg, the keepers shouted, "How's it going? How are we doing, up
    ahead there?"
     "Couldn't be better," Sabrino said as he slid off his dragon once it was
    securely chained to a stake. "By the powers above, I really don't see how
    anything could look finer. If we keep going like this, we'll get to Cottbus
    almost as fast as we got to Priekule."
     The keepers cheered. One of them took a chunk of meat, rolled it in
    a bucket full of ground cinnabar and brimstone, and tossed it to the
    dragon. A snap, and the meat was gone. The dragon ate greedily. It had
    worked hard today. It would work hard again tomorrow. As long as it
    got enough food and close to enough rest, it would be able to do what
    was required of it.
     "Eat, sleep, and fight," Sabriino said. "Not such a bad life, eh?"
     One of the keepers looked at him as if he'd lost his mind. "What about
    screwing?"
     "A reward for good service," Sabrino answered easily. "That'd pull
    ern into the army, wouldn't it? 'Serve your kingdom bravely and we'll
    put you out to stud.' Aye, they'd be storming to join up once they heard
    that." He laughed. So did the keepers. Why not laugh? The enemy fled
    before them.
     Captain Domiziano came up. "What's so funny, sir?" he asked.
    Sabrino told him. He laughed, too. "Can I quit andjoin up again?"
    
     "Up till now, my dear fellow, I haven't noticed you having any
    problems finding a lady - or, in a pinch, merely a woman - who was
    interested, or at least willing, when you were," Sabrino said.
     'Well, that's true enough," Domiziano said complacently. "The hunt-
    ing was better when we were on the eastern front, though. Those
    Valmieran and Jelgavan wenches acted almost the way the ones in t
    historical romances do. Most of the Kaunian women here won't give us
    the time of day, and half the Forthwegians are built like bricks.
     "It won't get any better," Sabrino said. "When we break 111to
    Unkerlant, they'll be even dumpier than the Forthwegians."
     "My lord count!" Domiziano said in piteous tones. "Did you have

    




    INTo THE DARKNESS         59
    
    as
    
    in
    
    out
    
    ked.
    
    21TV11
    
    INAS
    
   e hunt-
    Those
    s in the
    
    t give us
    
    ak into
    
    have to
    
    make me think in such doleful terms?"
     "What's so doleful about breaking into Unkerlant?" Captain Orosio
    asked. He'd come up too late to hear how the conversation started.
     Dormiziano needed only two words to fill him in: "Homely women."
     "Ali." Orosio nodded. He looked west. "You had better get used to
    it, MY dear comrade. Not even the powers above, I shouldn't think, can
    keep us from smashing the Unkerlanters once for all. You can watch
    them crumble as we hit them."
     "They're trying hard to fight back," Sabrino said, giving credit where
    he thought it due. "They may even be fighting back harder than the
    Kaunian kingdoms did in the east. The Jelgavans just quit once we got
    the jump on them; they had no use for their own officers. The
    Valmierans did a little better, but they still haven't figured out what hit
    them."
     "Do you think the Unkerlanters have, sit?" Orosio asked, his eyes
    wide.
     Sabn'no considered the day's action, the column flamed on the road
    and the dragon farm caught with its animals still chained to the ground.
    A slow smile stole across his face. "Now that you mention it, no," he said.
     Orosio and Domiziano both laughed and clapped their hands.
    Dorniziano said, "We'll be in Cottbus, burning King Swemmel's palace
    down around his crazy ears, before harvest time."
     "Aye." Captain Orosio nodded again. "He's going to have a lesson in
    what efficiency really means." He paraded around very stiffly, as if he
     were Arita to m2ke any movement not prescribed fOT him by Some
     higher authority.
       "You look like you've got a poker up your arse," Sabnino said.
       "Feels that way, too." Orosio relaxed into a more natural posture.
      "But go ahead and tell me it's not how Unkerlanters are."
       "I can't do that," Sabrino adrmitted. "Can't even come close. "They're
      the sort of people who wait for permission to come through on a crystal
      before they blow their noses. "
       "And they haven't got enough crystals to go around, either,"
      Domiziano added.
       "Makes things easier for us," Orosio said. "I'm in favor of whatever
      makes things easier for us."
       "What I'd be in favor of right now is some wine and some food,"

    




    592
    
    Harry Turtledove
    
    Sabrino said. "Our dragons are stuffing themselves" - he glanced bacl
    where the keepers tossed more gobbets of meat to the great beasts -
    I want to do the same."
     "I , in sorry, sir, but brimstone and cinnabar give me heartbur
    Domiziano said with a grin,
     "What would the back of my hand give you?" the wing cpmman
    asked, but he also grinned. Aye, grins were easy to come by in an a
    moving forward. Sabrino looked toward the west again. Faces would
    long in the Unkerlanter encampments. He hoped they would get long
    too, in the days ahead. In a low voice, he murmured, "The tide is flo
    ing our way."
     "Aye, it is," Captain Orosio said. For his part, he looked toward
    tents set to one side of the dragon farm. He was grinning, too. "An
    looks like supper is finally flowing our way."
     Supper, plainly, had been foraged from the Forthwegian countrysi
    Sabriino gorged himself on crumbly white cheese, almost preserved w
    salt and garlic, olives even saltier than the almonds, and breads with wh
    and barley flour dusted with sesame seeds. Had anyone back at his est
    presumed to serve him such a rough red wine, he would have bitten
    luckless fellow's head off. Here in the field, he drank it without co
    plaint. It might even have gone better with his simple fare than a in
    subtle vintage would have done.
     As he ate, the stars came out. The Gyongyosians made them in
    powers, powers that could control a man's destiny. Foolishness, as far
    Sabrino was concerned. Powers or not, though, they were beautiful.
    watched them for a while, till he caught himself yawning-
     He sought his bed without the least embarrassment or the least des
    for company. If young Domiziano had the energy to look for a compa
    ion and to do something with her once he found her, that was his
    Sabrino needed sleep.
     Some time in the middle of the night, Unkerlanter dragons droppe
    eggs not too far from the dragon farm. Sabrino woke up, cursed th
    Unkerlanters in a blurry voice, and fell asleep again. The next momi
    the attack went on.